It isn’t hard to imagine a time in the near future when great numbers of Americans take to the streets. Maybe the trigger would be another divisive presidential election, with half the nation refusing to accept four more years of an administration they loathe. Maybe the trigger would be impeachment hearings or a particularly controversial decision by “Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court,” such as restricting abortion.

Whatever the spark, it isn’t hard to imagine America’s intensifying domestic tensions exploding into mass riots.

Imagine how such a scenario might play out, with some “help” from outside adversaries: Governors call in the National Guard to support local law enforcement. Other military units are deployed to hundreds of cities. But law enforcement and military units are also ideologically divided, and unable to unite against the chaos. After weeks of carnage, few employees are willing to risk leaving their families for work, so businesses stop operating. Food supply chains begin breaking down. In cities, scarcity and looting become rampant.

Global markets take their worst plunges in decades, but the leaders of China and Russia look on eagerly. They quietly activate armies of hackers. Legions of operatives set to work exploiting vulnerabilities secretly planted in U.S. computer systems years earlier and locating new weak spots.

Within hours, the U.S. military suffers a global failure of communications satellites operating with Ka band frequencies. The sudden silence makes clear that the satellites have been hacked and compromised, but authorities can’t identify the origin of the assault. The Pentagon scrambles to reroute communication lines, with limited success.

Meanwhile, a dozen West Coast cities simultaneously go dark. The electric power grid has been hacked and fed poisoned code, taking numerous power stations suddenly offline. Adjoining stations shift into overdrive attempting to carry the extra burden. They fail, and secondary outages roll down from Washington to Arizona. Blackouts and brownouts begin spreading inland.

Nationwide, domestic turmoil is intensifying. City grocery stores have stood empty for weeks, and rampant hunger fuels unspeakable violence.

The Pentagon calls U.S. naval groups and submarines in to help contain the domestic chaos. Suffering from serious communications and weapons-system hacks, they fail to receive Washington’s message. Meanwhile, a fleet of American F-35s crash into the South China Sea after their vaunted Distributed Aperture Systems are hacked, leaving the pilots flying utterly blind.

America is imploding from within and under debilitating cyberattack from without. It is suddenly vulnerable to invasion.

This may sound like a far-fetched, dystopian science-fiction plot. But recent reports and trends show that such a scenario could soon become reality. And Bible prophecy reveals that America is headed for such a future.

China’s ‘Big Hack’

Bloomberg Businessweek published a bombshell report on Oct. 4, 2018, claiming that microchips the size of a grain of rice have been secretly planted on numerous server motherboards made by the hardware manufacturer Super Micro Computer Inc.

According to the report, the chips were secretly inserted at factories operated by manufacturing subcontractors in China, by operatives with direct links to the Chinese military. Bloomberg said U.S. investigators “concluded that this intricate scheme was the work of a People’s Liberation Army unit specializing in hardware attacks.”

Around 30 U.S. companies have used Supermicro’s products, including Apple and Amazon. The Department of Homeland Security, both houses of Congress and nasa have also used their chips. And the alleged hack also has alarming implications for the U.S. military. The compromised hardware, Bloomberg said, “could be found in Department of Defense data centers, the cia’s drone operations, and the onboard networks of Navy warships.”

The chips were placed on the motherboards in locations that would allow attackers to remotely “alter how the device functioned, line by line, however they wanted, leaving no one the wiser,” Bloomberg wrote. “Deviously small changes could create disastrous effects.”

The report said: “This attack was something graver than the software-based incidents the world has grown accustomed to seeing. Hardware hacks are more difficult to pull off and potentially more devastating, promising the kind of long-term, stealth access that spy agencies are willing to invest millions of dollars and many years to get.”

Apple, Amazon, Supermicro, Homeland Security and others disputed the Bloomberg report, and the Chinese government denied the allegations. But even if this particular report remains unconfirmed, it is not the only time firms with suspected links to the Chinese government have come under scrutiny by the U.S. for similar activities. In May 2018, the Pentagon said no phones built by Chinese manufacturers zte and Huawei can be used on U.S. military bases. And there are ongoing congressional investigations into Facebook and Google regarding their data-sharing with Huawei. In all these scenarios, the concern is America’s national security.

On October 5, John Bolton, who leads the U.S. National Security Council, declined to confirm the hack alleged in the Bloomberg report, but he addressed the broader cyberthreat posed by China. “I don’t want to address anything that might touch on specific intelligence questions,” he told reporters. “But I will say the Chinese efforts to threaten us in cyberspace and across the information technology spectrum are a very high priority for us.”

Some experts say that since the U.S. is so dependent on computer technologies with supply chains linked to China, such threats are something America must learn to live with. “I think we’ve already kind of passed the point where we can, for national security, just insource everything,” Katie Moussouris, ceo of Luta Security, told npr on October 6. “I think we’ve passed that point at least 30 years ago.”

America’s Achilles’ Heel

Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry has written on several occasions about the dangers of America’s dependence, particularly its military, on computer systems that are vulnerable to terrorist or enemy sabotage. In a January 1995 Trumpet article, he quoted analyst Joseph de Courcy, who called this dependence “the Western world’s Achilles’ heel.” This was a reference to the seemingly invincible warrior of Greek mythology who was vulnerable only on his heels.

“America is the greatest superpower this world has ever known,” Mr. Flurry wrote. “But we have a very vulnerable point in our military—our own Achilles’ heel.” This vulnerability “is so dangerous that I am amazed it hasn’t received more publicity” (ibid).

Mr. Flurry said de Courcy’s caution about cyber vulnerability reminded him of a Bible prophecy recorded in Ezekiel 7. The first three verses of that chapter show that God is addressing “the land of Israel” in the time of “the end,” which refer mainly to the United States and Britain in the modern era. (You can prove this profound truth for yourself by ordering and studying our free book The United States and Britain in Prophecy.)

Ezekiel 7 describes a future time when God will punish these nations for their “abominations” and their rejection of His law and authority (verse 8). Verse 14 describes one aspect of that punishment: “They have blown the trumpet, even to make all ready; but none goeth to the battle: for my wrath is upon all the multitude thereof.”

Mr. Flurry called this an “alarming” scripture. It is about a future time when U.S. military technology will be hijacked by enemies. “It seems everybody is expecting our people to go into battle, but the greatest tragedy imaginable occurs!” Mr. Flurry wrote. “Nobody goes to battle—even though the trumpet is blown! Will it be because of a computer terrorist?”

Verse 15 shows that this failure of American forces to respond to the battle cry will occur at a time when “[t]he sword is without, and the pestilence and the famine within.” In his book Ezekiel: The End-Time Prophet, Mr. Flurry explains that “pestilence” here mainly means the “plague of rioting, terrorist violence and burning.” There will be “breakdown of law and order,” he writes. And since it will happen while the country’s Achilles’ heel is being pierced by outside enemies, authorities will fail to contain the domestic violence.

Isaiah 59 provides more details about the same future time of calamity. In verses 9 and 10, the people of America and Britain are shown to be stripped of vision: “[W]e wait for light, but behold obscurity; [we wait] for brightness, but we walk in darkness. We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes: we stumble at noon day as in the night; we are in desolate places as dead men.”

This passage is certainly true spiritually: These nations are in great spiritual darkness and blindness. But it may well have a specific physical fulfillment as well. After computer networks of vital government institutions and agencies are ravaged by China and other enemy nations, the computer-reliant population will be in the dark. The military will be flying blind. This is a dark and disturbing picture of the near future.

In the June 1999 issue of the Trumpet, Mr. Flurry again discussed the U.S. military’s dangerous vulnerability to cyberattacks, writing, “We could lose the next war before we even begin.”

Blessings and Curses

The Bible makes clear that God takes no pleasure in punishing the peoples of the United States and Britain. Ezekiel 33:11 records Him asking them: “[W]hy will ye die, O house of Israel?”

Take a look at the politics, entertainment, education, industry and even religion in the U.S. and UK. Look at the unprecedented embrace and even celebration of abortion, pornography and perverse sexuality. It is clear that God has been shoved out of every facet of life.

In verse 11, God is asking why the people insist on living in ways that are entirely contrary to His way. Why must they insist on life choices that lead to destruction and death rather than choosing the stability and abundance that come from obeying Him? In doing so, the people force God to bring severe punishment upon them. He will not inflict the punishment in a spirit of malice, but to get their attention, and to cause them to see the error of their choices. “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked,” He says, “but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways.”

Mr. Flurry’s 1995 article discussed Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28, which are sometimes called the Bible’s “blessings and curses” chapters.

These important chapters detail specific ways God promised that He would bless the nations of Israel if they obeyed Him, and specific ways He would curse them if they chose to reject Him. Leviticus 26:37 explains one of the curses, with God saying to Israel, “ye have no power to stand before your enemies.”

America could be rendered powerless in several ways, one of which could be the virtual hijacking of its military’s computer systems. This would enable China and other American enemies to reduce the U.S. to a feckless force unable to “stand” before them.

Mr. Flurry wrote: “Will one of God’s curses come upon us in the form of computer terrorism? We are not receiving God’s blessings. We are being cursed” (January 1995).

Deuteronomy 28:25 is similar to Leviticus 26:37; it says, “The Lord shall cause thee to be smitten before thine enemies: thou shalt go out one way against them, and flee seven ways before them ….” This could occur in the confusion caused by rampant computer terrorism and other attacks, with people scattering in shameful retreat.

A 2017 Department of Defense report acknowledged America’s glaring cyber vulnerabilities, which could enable these prophecies to be fulfilled: “[T]he unfortunate reality is that, for at least the coming five to ten years, the offensive cyber capabilities of our most capable potential adversaries are likely to far exceed the United States’s ability to defend and adequately strengthen the resilience of its critical infrastructures.” This reality points to a bleak future for America.

‘All Thy Labours’ Are Eaten Up

Deuteronomy 28:33 records another powerful prophecy about one of the curses God would send upon Israel: “The fruit of thy land, and all thy labours, shall a nation which thou knowest not eat up; and thou shalt be only oppressed and crushed alway.”

With that prophecy in mind, consider these statements delivered by Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, a Republican from Texas, at a Jan. 18, 2018, congressional hearing: “It’s not just that China poses a threat,” he said, “it’s that the kind of threat is unlike anything the U.S. has ever before faced.” China has “weaponized” its investments in America “in order to vacuum up U.S. industrial capabilities from American companies,” he said. China’s goal, he added, is “to turn our own technology and know-how against us in an effort to erase our national security advantage.”

In recent years, the Chinese have repeatedly engaged in acts of industrial espionage, often targeting assets that America has spent billions to develop. Theft and other more subtle, underhanded tactics have allowed China to procure U.S. software and military secrets that have long given the U.S. a battlefield edge, including the blueprints for the U.S.’s top-of-the-line F-35 fighter jets. “Again and again,” Politico wrote on May 22, “high-tech products and military equipment have popped up in China that bear a too-striking resemblance to their American counterparts.”

Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, discussed the endemic problem on the Senate floor last year, saying, “China continues to steal our family jewels, the things that have made America great: the intellectual property, the know-how in the highest-end industries. It makes no sense.”

In ordinary circumstances, Schumer would be correct in saying this ongoing nation-threatening thievery of the U.S.’s most prized knowledge and assets “makes no sense.” But since the United States was specifically prophesied to have its “fruit” and “labors” devoured by an enemy nation, the pattern we are seeing play out today makes perfect sense. The U.S. is rejecting God, and as a result, God is letting America get “oppressed and crushed” by a foreign power, exactly as He promised in Deuteronomy 28:33.

Superpower Under Siege

Another especially chilling curse in Deuteronomy 28 involves a massive siege: “And he shall besiege thee in all thy gates, until thy high and fenced walls come down, wherein thou trustedst, throughout all thy land: and he shall besiege thee in all thy gates throughout all thy land, which the Lord thy God hath given thee” (verse 52).

Mr. Flurry explains in his booklet Isaiah’s End-Time Vision that this is about a time in the near future when Asian nations will work in conjunction with European countries to block the U.S. and Britain out of world trade. “[W]e believe there may be a brief alliance between the German-led Holy Roman Empire and certain Asian powers (Russia, China, Japan—the kings of the east),” he writes.

This group of European and Asian countries will function as a “dynamic market of nations,” he writes, adding that they are “going to besiege America, Britain and the Jewish nation.”

China’s ongoing espionage, hacking and theft of American intellectual property will equip it with the knowledge needed to spearhead this historic besiegement against the English-speaking countries.

In Ezekiel: The End-Time Prophet, Mr. Flurry provides more details about this prophesied siege: “Prophecy indicates that the German-led European Union will soon join forces with Russia, China and Japan to shut the U.S. out of more and more markets.” He continues: “The United States and Britain are going to be left out in the cold as two gigantic trade blocs, Europe and Asia, mesh together and begin calling the shots in world commerce. These nations … are going to be literally besieged—economically frozen out of world trade!”

This sobering prophecy is based on specific Bible passages in Ezekiel 5 and 27, Isaiah 22 and 23 and Revelation 18.

If China has infiltrated numerous American governmental and military systems with the Supermicro chips, or even if the nation is able to keep stealing the U.S.’s vital security assets, it is or will be in position to implement this prophesied siege.

Bible prophecy makes clear that the numerous external and internal threats now visibly forming will intensify and explode into a time of unprecedented devastation for the U.S., Britain and Israel. And Scripture shows that from there, the devastation will spread to engulf the whole world.

A Proven Source

China’s cyber assaults on U.S. computers and in its theft of American security secrets are now fulfilling biblical prophecies written thousands of years ago. The Bible is proving true. It is proving to be an authority that we can trust—and we must.

And the Bible does not stop with these grim prophecies. The same Bible that has accurately predicted the cyberattacks and systematic technology pilfering we are now seeing also predicts an event far more seismic: the return of Jesus Christ.

The bad news unfolding around the world today makes the powerful case, though most do not realize it, that the world needs a different type of government. It shows that the governments of West and East are failing. The bad news shows that we need a drastically better form of government. And when He returns, Christ will bring in a system of governance that is infinitely superior to anything mankind is capable of devising.

Global catastrophe is looming. But the same Bible that has proven itself trustworthy says Jesus Christ will interrupt the worldwide crisis. He will usher in an age of stability, peace and prosperity for all countries and peoples! He was born to be King of kings in that future world government (Luke 1:31-33; John 18:36-37; Revelation 19:11-16). And its establishment is now just on the horizon.

Revelation 11:15 states: “And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.”