9/11 was an epoch-defining event. The world watched live as 19 Islamic fanatics mass murdered a total of 2,977 people and terrorized millions. America united and announced its determination to defeat radical organizations and governments that protected them. On Oct. 7, 2001, just 26 days after 9/11, this war started with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

American flags were everywhere, America felt strong, and it was just beginning to prosecute the war on terror. Yet the Trumpet wrote that “its efforts will fall short.” Why? “It frankly does not have the necessary will to tackle the enormity of the problem!”

It was an agonizing forecast to make, but it was based on the sure word of Bible prophecy.

Twenty years later, the world is again focusing on Afghanistan and the Taliban as America’s war there ends. After spending $273 million per day for over 7,200 days, and losing more than two American soldiers per week for 1,036 weeks, this nation’s train wreck of a withdrawal—a smashup of betrayal, falseness, weakness, capitulation and futility that the whole world can see—is another epoch-defining event.

This is not just bad news. This is one of the “signs of the times” of Bible prophecy, and you must discern it!

In foretelling America’s failure in Afghanistan, the Trumpet was simply putting into contemporary phrasing the prophecy of Leviticus 26:19, which warns the modern descendants of ancient Israel (mainly the English-speaking nations) that God would punish us for our sins by breaking the pride of our power—power He gave us in the first place. And also the prophecy of verse 20, which presciently foretells, “Your strength will be spent uselessly …” (New America Standard Bible).

This is what you are seeing when you see battered weapons carried by bearded and turbaned men in tunics taking over American-built installations in Kabul. You are seeing curses from God. America is a cursed nation. Nothing illustrates this better than what is happening in the “war on terror” as you are reading this. America still has aircraft carriers, heavy-lift helicopters, trained personnel, firepower of all kinds. Yet we have no will. Our impressive war machines are being used to evacuate and retreat—or being left behind by the ton for Taliban warlords and whomever wants to take or buy them.

Recognize that this is what it feels like to be in the last minutes of the millenniums of human civilization. America’s will is gone, its society is imploding, and its remaining positive influence on the world is evaporating.

It can make you feel helpless and in despair. But there is something you can do.

The same God who gave America its power and now takes it away tells us exactly what we can do.

“Behold the fig tree, and all the trees; When they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand. So likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand” (Luke 21:29-31).

Jesus Christ tells us first to recognize reality. The season of human civilization is, in fact, ending. But this also means that a new civilization is coming: the Kingdom of God!

Our Creator gave us signs we can recognize as the seasons change. Christ gave us specific signs in Bible prophecy that we can use to discern the future with the same certainty. You can tell that the end of this age is near by watching to see these signs. You can compare the Bible to your daily news and see them fulfilled, step by step.

Christ is telling you to be on the lookout!

What has happened in recent days in Afghanistan is prophecy fulfilled. It is a vivid sign of America’s prophesied decrepitude and downfall.

The most blessed nation in world history is now being abjectly cursed! Is there not a lesson to be learned in this—a personal lesson?

“And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting [carousing], and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares,” Jesus warned. “For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth” (verses 34-35).

The prophecies of events that will end the age of man are horrific—and those events will catch a lot of people unawares. But they won’t catch you, if you pay attention, and if you change not only your news-watching habits but also your life.

“Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man” (verse 36).

This is a direct command: Watch and pray always! If you do, God says you can be accounted worthy to escape what is coming.

At this moment, tens of thousands of Americans, Afghans and others are desperately hoping to escape the nightmarish rule of the Taliban. They are crowding into cargo jets at three and four times their capacity. Some are clinging to the sides of the jets as they take off—bringing to mind images of people clawing at the sides of Noah’s ark when God sent the Flood.

Those people desperate to escape are a poignant symbol of what is increasingly happening with this dying world. The same accurate Bible prophecies show that the Afghan crisis is a sign of even worse crises that will spread, multiply and swallow human civilization, causing more and more people to seek escape to safety!

God does offer protection. As in Noah’s day, He is raising up a work to match the magnitude of the times. This work, as Noah did, teaches God’s prophecies and warnings. But most people, as in Noah’s day, are uninterested.

There is still time—just a sliver of it. You can still watch and pray. You can still prove the prophecies from your own Bible. You can “take heed to yourself” to change your life and repent of the human nature and the sins that produce catastrophes, past and future, like Afghanistan.

You can learn the lesson of Afghanistan, and that of the history of all human civilization: that all human attempts at governing ourselves apart from God are fatally flawed and grossly corrupt! Our only hope is the institution of the literal government of God over all nations. Our only hope is that “the kingdom of God is near at hand.”

“Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever” (1 John 2:15-17).

This is the perspective you need. Are you going the way of this world, which is indeed passing away in spectacular fashion—or are you striving to submit your will to the will of God, the law of God and the work of God?

God’s work is a plane taking off from the disaster zone of this world, its societies and its wars. But it is not evacuating in shame: It is carrying the world’s only hope, God’s message! It is on a mission. If God is calling you (John 6:44), He is calling you to board it—not as a refugee, but as the crew.

Look up from the despair of this world. Look up and heed the command of Jesus Christ: Watch and pray always that you might be accounted worthy to escape and to stand before God.

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