The most dominant, powerful and prosperous single nation in world history is deep into a catastrophic decline. It is rapidly withdrawing from international leadership. Its disastrous social, political and economic experiments are dividing the population against itself and its government. A great many Americans recognize this and are saddened, angry and bewildered. People the world over see it as well. This represents a massive, epoch-defining transformation of the modern world.

The Trumpet has written much about this decline within America in recent years. Our editor in chief’s lead-off article in this issue is the latest in a series he has produced on the subject, providing essential understanding of this trend’s spiritual dimension.

We have not written nearly as much, though, on how this same trend is unfolding in several other nations worldwide—specifically a band of nations that share significant history with America. This group of English-speaking nations has dominated the world for over 200 years, led by America and Britain. Now there is a strong push to weaken and destroy these nations. It is being abetted by great and rising powers like Russia and China, by rogue regimes like Iran, and even by supposed allies like Germany.

But shamefully, the worst damage is being wreaked by the leaders within these once richly blessed nations!

The anger and perplexity of so many of America’s 330 million people is shared by a great many of the 67 million citizens of Britain—and the 38 million people of Canada, and 25 million Australians, and 5 million New Zealanders. Their lives are being turned upside-down; long-cherished beliefs, traditions and ideals are being trashed and vilified; rights and freedoms are being stripped overnight.

But as incomprehensible and disorienting as these events are, they have a singular, crystal-clear explanation.

Particularly in the past two years of covid-19, events have dramatically transformed the entire world. But these English-speaking nations, and their status in the world, have been most grievously hurt. The key to understanding why lies in knowing their shared history. This points to some of the most inspiring truth you will ever learn. And it shows you in advance the ultimate outcome of the recent developments afflicting these interrelated nations.

‘A Company of Nations’

America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand were all British colonies. The peoples of these nations are the same peoples as the British. They have a common ancestry. The moral and political strides made by the British people over centuries—Magna Carta, parliamentary rule, Common Law, the abolition of slavery—have extended to all these nations. They share a common commitment to the rule of law, human rights, limited government, the sanctity of private property, education, and personal responsibility and freedom.

As a result, the age of Anglo-American dominance was characterized by civilizational progress, technological development and individual liberty. These English-speaking nations have increased the quality of life, literacy and prosperity for millions of people in nations worldwide. On several occasions, these nations have saved the world from the jaws of tyranny.

These peoples all descended from the British—but where did the British people come from? A look further back in their history shows the inspiring origin of many of the characteristics and beliefs that made them unique.

That history is revealed in a landmark book, written by Herbert W. Armstrong, titled The United States and Britain in Prophecy. This book supplies crucial understanding of our modern world. It is so important that the publisher of the Trumpet prints and offers free copies to anyone who asks for it. (See the back cover of this magazine on how to contact us, or request it online at theTrumpet.com/go/USBP.) And it definitively shows that the British peoples descended from the biblical nation of Israel.

Gary Dorning/Trumpet

Biblical history shows that Israel was a nation God founded with one righteous, obedient and faithful man, Abraham. To this great patriarch, God made spectacular promises of national greatness in his descendants, as well as spiritual promises of salvation. “These are not casual, incidental, unimportant promises,” Mr. Armstrong wrote. “These are basic—the foundation for the establishment of the greatest world powers …” (The United States and Britain in Prophecy). God promised Abraham that He would “make of thee a great nation,” “multiply thee exceedingly,” and that Abraham would “be a father of many nations.” “I … will make nations [plural] of thee, and kings shall come out of thee,” God said (Genesis 12:2; 17:2, 4, 6). Further, He promised, “I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies” (Genesis 22:17).

God reiterated and expanded these promises to Abraham’s son, his son and his sons. He promised Abraham’s grandson Jacob that his descendants would receive untold wealth symbolized by “the dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine,” and that they would be “as the dust of the earth, and … shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south …” (Genesis 27:28; 28:14). After renaming Jacob Israel, God promised that “a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee …” (Genesis 35:10-11). Israel had 12 sons, who fathered the 12 tribes that composed the nation of Israel. His son Joseph had two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, on whom Israel placed his name and established that Manasseh would father a single “great” people, while the “multitude of nations” would descend from Ephraim (Genesis 48:16, 19). Among all the progeny of Israel, these two Josephite peoples would receive the choicest birthright blessings, amounting to prosperity unparalleled in human history (1 Chronicles 5:2).

The world has come to view the Jews as the modern descendants of Israel—and so they are. But they are the progeny of the tribe of Judah, which is just one of the 12 tribes of Israel, the only one that has preserved its biblical identity. The 10-tribed northern kingdom of Israel broke away from Judah in 928 b.c., endured two centuries of wicked rule by a sequence of terrible kings, fought its brother kingdom of Judah on more than one occasion, and was finally conquered and enslaved in 721 to 718 b.c. At that point, the identity of these Israelites was virtually lost to the world, and even largely to themselves. They were subsumed into their captor peoples, the Assyrians.

Even by the first century a.d., Jesus Christ Himself referred to these peoples as “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 10:6; 15:24). Intriguingly, though, He commissioned His disciples to go to them. So though they were “lost” from general view, God knew exactly where they were and was still enacting His plans for them.

The United States and Britain in Prophecy tracks just what happened to them. The fact is, the greatest of material promises God made to the descendants of Israel, He also conditioned on their obedience to Him (see Leviticus 26). As that book explains, God promised that if they rebelled against Him, He would withhold those blessings for a certain duration. That period of punishment ended right at the beginning of the 19th century. And it was right at that time that the British and American peoples exploded into unprecedented prominence, prosperity and global influence.

Almost overnight, Britain became the largest empire in world history. Even after the empire’s dissolution, it remains a commonwealth of nations. This is the “company of nations” prophesied 3,700 years ago in Genesis 35:11! The people of America descend from Manasseh, whom God prophesied would become a single great nation. The people of Britain—and of its dominions Canada, Australia and New Zealand—trace back to the ancient Israelite tribe of Ephraim, which descended from Joseph, son of Israel, son of Isaac, son of Abraham!

This prophecy links these English-speaking nations together. It shows God’s hand in their rise and explains the role they have played in the world for the past 200 years.

The truth of their biblical identity also unlocks an enormous amount of your Bible to your understanding.

Prophecy and Spiritual War

Do you believe God inspired the Bible? A great many people do, but very few acknowledge the fact that at least one third of this inspired book is devoted to prophecy. Jesus Christ Himself was a prophet. In passage after passage, biblical book after book, God foretold the rise and fall of specific individuals, cities, peoples, nations and empires. God alone is able to foretell events and bring it to pass. And He offers prophecy as proof of His active existence and intervention in human affairs—and of proof of the divine inspiration of the Holy Bible. Fulfilled prophecy is undeniable, watertight confirmation of the reliability of God’s Word.

The trouble is, most people see prophecy as incomprehensible. It has no relevance to them because they do not see how it relates to the modern world.

Once you recognize, though, that the prophecies related to Israel apply directly to America, Britain and the other modern Ephraimite nations, you gain penetrating insight into the world as it is and as it will be in the time just ahead.

Those prophecies show that, though God promised to make Ephraim and Manasseh great in this modern time, He also conditioned the retention of those blessings on these nations’ obedience to Him. In prophecy after prophecy, He detailed exactly what would happen if they turned away from Him.

In this Trumpet issue, we look at how these prophecies are coming to pass in each of these nations of Ephraim: Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Read these articles and understand the spectacular connections between these nations and the miraculous reasons they have attained their heights of achievement. Read these articles and recognize the factors that have led to their decline. This Trumpet issue will broaden your perspective and enable you to see God’s hand in world events in a way that will truly strengthen your faith!

The story of the rise of these nations is inspiring. You can read all about it in The United States and Britain in Prophecy. The fall of these nations was always going to be gut-wrenching. We are witnesses to it. Prophecy supplies the broad outline and also forecasts some remarkable detail. But now history and current events are filling in the full picture.

It is critical to see the spiritual reasons behind these events. The most dominant factor in what is happening is the spiritual dimension. On one hand you have the God of Israel, intervening directly in human history over a period of millenniums to fulfill His promises and provide material blessings to millions upon millions of people. You also have Him warning of the consequences of rebelling, and then chastening them in incrementally more devastating ways in an effort to turn them back to Himself.

On the other you have an evil spirit, Satan the devil, who hates and works to undermine everything God is doing. He is attacking these nations in a focused way. In fact, as Gerald Flurry brings out, his ultimate goal is to blot out the very name of Israel, which rests on these English-speaking nations in particular (e.g. 2 Kings 14:27; Psalm 83:3-4).

This is the spiritual backdrop of the plagues besieging these nations. Once you see this, you can understand all these bewildering crises. And you can take to heart the Bible’s warnings that conditions are going to get far worse—before they get far better.

Mr. Armstrong called the understanding of the identity of these nations as “the all-important master key” to biblical prophecy. He wrote, “This very eye-opening, astounding identity is the strongest proof of the inspiration and authority of the Holy Bible!” (ibid).

The rise of these nations proves those prophecies, and hence the Bible, true. The current fall of these nations supplies additional authoritative proof. It shows that prophecy is real, active, alive, reliable. All that God said would happen has happened—and what remains yet unfulfilled is happening. Those prophecies reveal the end result of the trends playing out right now. They signal a lightning-bolt warning that our nations must heed or pay a terrifying price.

Those prophecies also show, thankfully, that on the other side of the English-speaking world’s collapse, there is a glorious hope.