In March, the United States Justice Department charged 50 wealthy people for trying to buy their children’s way into elite colleges like Yale, University of California–Los Angeles and Georgetown. These students were academically unqualified, so their parents paid their way in. One family spent $500,000 for two of their daughters to enter the University of Southern California. Such bribery is almost routine in some of these universities, reports showed.

This is a sham, and very disturbing. Besides being disgraceful and degenerate, it is much more destructive to America than most people realize. It exposes the nation’s moral degeneration, its twisted priorities, and its disregard for character and for law.

Get In, and You Have It Made

One elite college implicated in the scandal was Harvard, home of the Harvard Law School. Ben Shapiro, who attended Harvard Law, wrote a shocking article in the Daily Wire about it.

“Colleges aren’t about training kids for the real world, or teaching them significant modes of thinking, or examining timeless truths. Universities aren’t about skill sets, either—at least in the humanities. They’re about two things: credentialism and social connections,” Shapiro wrote (March 12). A degree from one of these universities raises social standing and opens doors in society. But “[h]ere’s the problem: Neither of these priorities actually demands that universities teach anything. Credentialism occurs upon admission, so long as you aren’t thrown out of school; social capital begins to accrue with presence, not with performance.”

These students only need to show up to succeed. That is a farce, and terribly destructive to those students—and to society! It isn’t that way at Herbert W. Armstrong College, and it never will be, God willing.

“Hence colleges watering down curricula and grades in order to make it easier to credential, and to generate less friction,” Shapiro continued. “That’s what students and parents demand: not skills, not education, but credentialism and social capital.” They want the status of a brand-name degree even if the students gain little education! These students, or their parents, buy their way past an education.

Consider this: “After I was admitted to Harvard Law School, I attended orientation. Our 500-strong class was gathered in Memorial Hall, in historic Sanders Theater, where then Dean Elena Kagan (now Supreme Court justice) spoke to us.” What Shapiro then wrote tells you a lot about this woman. This type of thinking should disqualify her to sit on that court!

“She informed us that the competition was over—we were in! No need to worry about the stuff we’d seen in The Paper Chase—we were all going to leave with degrees and jobs. Not just that—as graduates of Harvard Law, we were destined to rule the universe. She informed us of how many alumni were in the Senate, how many in Congress, how many on the Supreme Court. The battle was over upon our acceptance to the institution” (emphasis mine).

You have it made if you just get in—apparently, even if you buy your way in! This philosophy has catastrophe written all over it!

Harvard Law School probably teaches more about the U.S. Constitution, the supreme law of the land, than any other university. This former dean of students is now sitting on the Supreme Court, and is supposed to be protecting and defending the Constitution. Clearly, in many cases she is not.

Law school students should learn all about the Constitution. When America’s founders created it, much of their thinking was rooted in the Bible, and that noble document reflects this. In many ways, our republic’s foundation was built on the Bible. But today’s elite universities are teaching students to disrespect both the Constitution and the Bible!

Pampered, Not Challenged

“This also has significant political ramifications,” Shapiro continued. “It means that students admitted to colleges expect to be pampered, not challenged.” Harvard has more social capital than probably any other university, yet students there are being pampered. Parents demand it!

Shapiro then gave a shocking example. “Prof. Harvey Mansfield of Harvard University was essentially forced by the administration not to give honest grades—he started giving two grades, one for merit, and then one for the administration, so as not to penalize people for taking his classes. Politically, this also means that students expect not to be challenged—they expect to be comfortable.”

Isaiah prophesied that in our day the people—whether in churches, universities or anywhere else—would want to hear “smooth things” and deceits, whatever keeps them comfortable (Isaiah 30:10). But events are hurtling toward disaster! People’s delusions and preoccupation with comfort won’t protect them from reality crashing in! Those students’ education is doing them a terrible disservice.

This world needs to be truly educated. Without true education, you will not seek wisdom from anything beyond the self—you will simply go the way of human reasoning and human nature. This is exactly what we see in our young people. Universities are turning them into conscripts and shock troops for the radical left! This is unraveling society!

At the root of this scandal is lawlessness. Even law schools display a contempt for law. Yet look at history and you see that even the greatest empires, like Greece and Rome, when they let slip the rule of law, were destroyed! That is exactly what will happen to the United States if we continue to undermine the law in this country.

An Attempted Coup

Here is an example of what lawyers receiving anti-law education at these elite schools can do to undermine society. Many of these lawyers are part of what is called the “deep state.” Virtually all of them have a deep hatred for the current president of the United States.

Lisa Page was one of those lawyers. She worked on the team of Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel investigation of Donald Trump, and was discovered to have been part of corruption within the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

In 2016, the fbi was about to investigate Hillary Clinton for gross negligence. Last year, Page testified before a congressional committee that many in the fbi, including its director, James Comey, believed Clinton may have been guilty. She said, “[W]e had multiple conversations, multiple conversations, with the Justice Department about charging gross negligence.” There was gross negligence, and an unparalleled cover-up: Clinton destroyed over 30,000 of her e-mails. Nevertheless, Page said, the Obama Department of Justice said no to an investigation.

Rep. John Ratcliffe directly asked Page if the decision not to investigate was because of a direct order from the Justice Department. “When you say advice you got from the department, you’re making it sound like it was the department that told you: ‘You’re not going to charge gross negligence because we’re the prosecutors and we’re telling you we’re not going to,’” he said. Page responded, “That’s correct.”

These are people from those elite colleges, and this is how they conduct business. They think they “rule the universe,” as Shapiro put it. They excuse whatever illegality they choose, and attack whomever they will. They feel entitled and unaccountable. They believe they are justified in operating outside the law!

Since Donald Trump became president, a mountain of this type of shady, behind-the-scenes lawlessness has been exposed. The Mueller investigation was not really an investigation—it was an unlawful attack on the Trump administration! These educated elites are trying to overthrow the votes of 63 million Americans! That is an attempted coup!

Before the last presidential election, these people just knew they would win. They think they are destined to “rule the universe”! In most cases, they are not elected officials, nobody voted for them, but they consider themselves the only ones qualified to govern. They cannot believe a “barbarian” like Donald Trump became president, and they cannot take it! So they must overthrow him.

These individuals do not feel bound by the Constitution—the supreme law of the land! They have no respect for our Bill of Rights, which safeguards our freedom of speech and freedom of religion and protects us from governmental overreach.

What if Mr. Trump had lost that election? None of this would have come to light. The more we learn, the clearer the picture becomes of just how deep the corruption is and how much worse it would have gotten!

Spirit of Lawlessness

What is behind this spirit of lawlessness? As I write in my booklet America Under Attack, it is actually an evil spirit being that is trying to destroy the country! Satan the devil has been cast down from heaven, and he and his demons are confined to this Earth (Revelation 12:9, 12). You see his growing influence in the partisan division, lying and deceit, anger and hatred, contempt for authority, and lawlessness!

Satan’s malevolent influence is in our faces every day, yet most people are blind to it. In most cases, they have no idea of the power they are dealing with! So what chance do they have to resist it—unless God intervenes to help them in some way?

God has intervened to temporarily save America. I explained this in my article “Saving America From the Radical Left—Temporarily.” God is using a modern-day version of Jeroboam—an unrighteous king who nevertheless led ancient Israel into a brief period of restored greatness that postponed the nation’s collapse! (2 Kings 14:23-27). This is exactly what is happening in America today under our current president.

The devil, though, is trying to destroy this man who is being used to temporarily save modern-day Israel! And he is stirring up and using a lot of people who are products of a deeply corrupted educational system.

God loves America and Britain—the modern-day descendants of biblical Israel. He is correcting and punishing our nations to try to turn us from our sins. He asks, through the Prophet Ezekiel, “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?” (Ezekiel 33:11).

Really, had Mr. Trump not been elected, this nation would have already died!

Civil War

Look again at the prophecy of Isaiah 30: “[S]peak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits.” This is a prophecy for our time today! God told Isaiah—and He tells the group of people who are doing His work today, “Now go, write it before them in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever” (verse 8). That’s the end time.

This is a dual prophecy: It is for America today, and for the Church of God, which is mostly turned away from God during this age. And God’s message is, “That this is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the Lord” (verse 9). People will not hear the law! Even those who are studying the law in the universities—those being groomed to lead the nation—are learning to hold not only God’s law but even the nation’s own Constitution in derision! Don’t worry about that, they are told—just get in here and you’ve got it made! You’ll rule the universe!

People today don’t want truth. They love deceits. The media are so intent on bringing down the president that they will not accept the results of a two-year investigation into whether President Trump colluded with the Russians. Robert Mueller’s team of Trump-hating lawyers spent two years and more than $25 million doing everything possible to find the president guilty—and found nothing! There was no collusion, which means legally there could be no obstruction of justice. But Mueller said he didn’t exonerate Mr. Trump in that area—to help the Democrats keep this thing alive. They will not stop attacking! They discard the evidence and keep hammering away at all the supposed crimes and terrible conspiracies the president is involved in!

Most of the mainstream media are like robots. They all say the same thing, exactly what the Democratic Party directs them to say. And they are walking in lockstep toward a cliff, and are about to walk right off!

This is the condition of our country today. We live in a dangerous world. China is getting a choke hold on world trade routes. Russia is flying soldiers into Venezuela, just south of the U.S. Germany is domineering Europe and rising as a superpower. America has many enemies working to undermine the nation economically and politically, and preparing to challenge it militarily. Open your eyes to what these nations are doing. The threats are real! Yet Americans are ignoring them all. Instead the educated elites and the radical left keep talking about President Trump’s supposed collusion with Russia. They are leading this nation toward civil war! That is coming to this country! Americans are ripping each other apart and weakening the nation from within!

Isaiah also prophesied that our great leaders would be removed—the mighty men, the great warriors and judges, the honorable men, the eloquent orators (Isaiah 3:1-3). They are gone, and in their place, we have children ruling over us—and grown-ups behaving like children! (verse 4). The radical left in particular are acting like unruly children. They hate law! They want to destroy the Constitution. That is what these elite universities are teaching them in many cases. They are following the lawless dictates of human nature. Of course, when they get control, they use tyrannical methods to rule.

Establishing the Rule of Law

Where is this lawlessness leading? Please study this paragraph by British historian Paul Johnson, which I quote in my booklet No Freedom Without Law: “The rule of law, as distinct from the rule of a person, or class or people, and as opposed to the rule of force, is an abstract, sophisticated concept. It is mighty difficult to achieve. But until it is achieved, and established in the public mind with such vehemence that masses of individuals are prepared to die to uphold it, no other form of progress can be regarded as secure. The Greeks had tried to establish the rule of law but failed. The Romans had succeeded under their republic, but Caesar and his successors had destroyed it. The essence of the rule of law is its impersonality, omnipotence and ubiquity. It is the same law for everyone, everywhere—kings, emperors, high priests, the state itself, are subject to it. If exceptions are made, the rule of law begins to collapse—that was the grand lesson of antiquity” (emphasis mine).

How precious and unique is the rule of law! And how dangerous is its collapse!

America’s early pioneers risked their lives making the dangerous pilgrimage across the Atlantic. Many of them died during the journey, and many more died when they arrived. They had to fight to get here. Why? Many of them fled oppression and persecution. They yearned for freedom from despotism, and freedom to practice their religion.

Those early settlers actually came here to establish the rule of God on Earth. That was their goal! Look at the laws they established for the colonies from the beginning. The minds of many were filled with the Bible. And they did accomplish the mighty goal of establishing the rule of law. The leaders and the people of early America died to give this nation freedom and to establish the Constitution—probably the greatest constitution there has ever been. Many shed their blood because they believed in this government.

The Constitution was created by men who held great respect for the Bible and its Author, and who understood some of its important, basic truths. They built a system to safeguard the God-given freedoms of every man. They created a government aimed at restraining the corruptible human heart. They guaranteed the rights of all citizens to worship God without fear of government coercion. In 1954, Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote, “I believe the entire Bill of Rights came into being because of the knowledge our forefathers had of the Bible and their belief in it.”

What has happened to that understanding today? Why have so many Americans, especially those most steeped in education from our elite universities, become so hostile to the Constitution? Why are they so contemptuous of the rule of law? In many ways, an attack on the U.S. Constitution is an attack on God, and the truth of God.

How many people do you think there are in America today willing to shed their blood for the Constitution and the rule of law? Do you think those people buying their way into the elite colleges would? What about those lawyers who are trying to overthrow the government?

Without the rule of law, you lose everything! When America’s government was established, Benjamin Franklin said that we have “a republic, if you can keep it.” Sadly, we cannot keep it, because we are so far from God! It is only a matter of time before we lose it! We are going down fast. You don’t have to understand biblical prophecy to know the U.S. is at its end—you just need a good education in history!

I marvel when I look back at that history. How rare for people to have the opportunity to accomplish something so momentous! They weren’t putting politics first, or education or riches. They wanted freedom—freedom of religion, freedom of speech—freedom rooted in the rule of law. They didn’t have much freedom where they came from.

These people mustered profound commitment and courage. They believed in their cause so deeply they were willing to die for it. It really is great to have a cause in your life you are willing to die for. If you don’t, you will sputter around in shallow water and never gain any real depth.

Look at our spiritual forefathers. Remember the 12 apostles of Jesus Christ? Eleven of them were martyred! The only one who lived to old age was John, and he wrote most of his books while imprisoned on the isle of Patmos. The Apostle Paul was repeatedly jailed, attacked and finally murdered—simply because he believed God and taught the truth of the Bible. He didn’t hide it under a bushel; he let his light shine all over the Gentile world and parts of Israel.

That is the sacrifice God required of these men as they proclaimed His wonderful truth and fought to establish it and preserve it for future generations. And those men considered dying for their cause a tremendous bargain!

God is going to use those individuals as part of a new government. He is preparing people for offices in the government that will rule Earth very shortly once Jesus Christ returns and establishes a new civilization! It will eradicate the sin and correct the injustice of today’s world. The arrogance of self-impressed scholars who suppress truth and defy God will cease! This government will administer the law of God, and teach people to love law.

What honor God gives to those who are part of that! It’s not always easy as we prepare for that future in a world so hostile against it. But God is offering that opportunity to you. You can learn the law and constitution of that future civilization today, live by it, and help God proclaim it. Seize the opportunity!