One hundred fifty-five years ago today, the Battle of Gettysburg—the largest battle ever fought on the American continent—concluded with a decisive victory for the Union. That victory marked a turning point in the American Civil War, giving the North a strategic upper hand that would eventually lead to the defeat of the South.

The Union was preserved. The people of America, for the most part, accepted a common vision for the nation. And the United States became prosperous and powerful. The country went on to play a vital role in defeating imperialist powers in both world wars, and then to oversee an era of relative peace for billions of people.

But in recent years, political polarization is once again dividing the people of the United States. And since the 2016 election of President Donald Trump, the outrage of America’s radical left has reached a fever pitch.

Just within the last two weeks, California Congresswoman Maxine Waters publicly called for leftists to harass and intimidate Trump and his administration for their role in the detention of the children of illegal immigrants (a policy which was reversed in late June). “Let’s make sure we show up wherever we have to show up and if you see anybody from that cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them, and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere,” she yelled at ralliers.

The statement came a day after White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked to leave a Virginia restaurant because she works for the president. Waters’s call to action kicked off a national firestorm, with some officials on her side of the political aisle even calling for civility.

But Waters was not swayed.

In a subsequent interview with msnbc, she doubled down on her stance, saying Trump and his team should be “absolutely harassed until they decide” to change their minds.

Hillary Clinton, who lost the 2016 presidential race to Trump, was asked about the “uncivil” nature of such leftist calls to action. “Oh give me a break,” she said. “Resolve and strength” are needed to resist the president.

Last Thursday, former President Barack Obama warned the crowd at a Democratic National Committee fundraiser that the U.S. is on the brink. “You are right to be concerned,” he said about the state of American leadership.

But concern isn’t enough for liberal filmmaker Michael Moore. After calling President Trump “the devil” on The Late Show last Thursday, he asked, “When are people going to get off the couch and rise up? The only way that we’re going to stop this is eventually we’re all going to have to put our bodies on the line. You’re going to have to be willing to do this.”

Over the weekend, tens of thousands of Americans responded to these kinds of calls to rise up by staging anti-Trump protests in more than 700 cities across the nation.

Maybe this current bout of leftist outrage will dissipate since Trump has signed an executive order to end the policy of separating families. But the general bitter division is only growing deeper, and huge numbers of Americans feel that it will soon lead to major internal conflict.

A Rasmussen survey published last week said almost one third of Americans think another civil war could break out in the U.S. in the next five years. Only 29 percent said they felt such a scenario was “not at all likely.”

A more detailed breakdown shows that 44 percent of African Americans believe a civil war will occur within five years, while 28 percent of white Americans and 36 percent of other minority voters agree.

The sobering reality is that these poll respondents are right. “The bitter division in America today is leading to another civil war that will be 10,000 times worse!” Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote in August of last year.

Mr. Flurry examined a statement Jesus Christ made during His ministry on Earth, recorded in Matthew 12:25: “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand.”

Abraham Lincoln famously quoted those words in the context of the Civil War, and Mr. Flurry explained that the stage is set for a repetition of that violence because the house of America is divided once again! “Republicans and Democrats are divided like no time before,” he wrote. “The radical left is stirring up so many problems in America. Some on the radical left believe they are bringing down President Donald Trump, but are they instead bringing down America itself?”

Mr. Flurry said three months later that a second American civil war will bring an end to the era of relative peace that America has maintained in the world for the last several decades:

How serious is this issue? The first civil war cost almost as many American lives as all other American wars combined! But another eruption of violence between Americans would be far worse. If the country plunges into infighting, many foreign nations will be ready to pounce. America is the wealthiest nation in history: If it continues to destroy itself, nations like China, Russia, North Korea, Iran and others will destroy whatever the civil war doesn’t as they vie for the loot. The American superpower will become history, and a third world war, with multiple nuclear powers, will follow.

The Trumpet and, before us, Herbert W. Armstrong have warned of World War iii for over 80 years! This war is prophesied in your Bible. America’s division is hastening the fulfillment of what God forecast thousands of years ago.

By stoking the flames of discontent, radical leftists are playing with fire. Right now that blaze is still mostly confined to the halls of academia, the media and other havens of radical leftism. But both history and Bible prophecy show that those flames will spread. Isaiah 1:7 describes the near future of the U.S., saying, “Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.”

This points to a sobering future. Yet there is hope in this message. There is a way of escape from the coming civil war. To understand this hope and this path of escape, please set aside time to carefully watch Mr. Flurry’s recent television program on this vital topic.