Before World War ii, Britain and the United States came to control a great number of the world’s “sea gates.” These included the Suez Canal, the Panama Canal, Malta, Cyprus, Singapore, Hong Kong, the Cape of Good Hope and the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean.

British and American control over these and more than a dozen other strategic sea gates played a key role in decades of relative global stability and economic growth.

But in recent decades, America and Britain have surrendered control of many of these assets. And on October 3, Britain said it would hand the Chagos Islands over to the nation of Mauritius.

“The United Kingdom will agree that Mauritius is sovereign over the Chagos Archipelago, including Diego Garcia,” British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Mauritian Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth said in a joint statement.

Besides meaning the sun will soon officially set on the British Empire for the first time in centuries, the move is significant because Britain’s presence there has been of strategic military value for both the United Kingdom and America, which operates a joint military base with Britain on the largest island in the chain: Diego Garcia.

Strategic Analysis explained the value of this base in a 2012 report:

Diego Garcia … facilitates U.S. power projection through the prepositioning of army and marine corps brigade sets, long-range bomber operations, the replenishment of naval surface combatants, and the strike and special operations capabilities of guided-missile submarines that can call at the atoll’s wharf.

The base on Diego Garcia was used as an “unsinkable aircraft carrier” for the U.S. during Operation Desert Storm, Operation Desert Fox, Operation Enduring Freedom and others. Now this strategically important military presence—which has contributed to global stability for decades—is under serious threat.

In the announcements this week, Mauritius said the U.S. and UK can maintain operations at the base under a lease agreement. But the handover, and Mauritius’s ties with China, means such a leasing deal could come to an abrupt end at any time. And Bible prophecy shows that Britain and the U.S. will likely soon lose their foothold there.

Genesis 22:17 records God’s promise to the patriarch Abraham that his “descendants” would one day “take possession of the gates of their enemies” (International Standard Version).

Late educator Herbert W. Armstrong wrote about this promise in his book The United States and Britain in Prophecy, where he proved that the people of the U.S. and UK are the descendants of Abraham who received this promised possession of sea gates. “[T]hese descendants of [Abraham’s great-grandson] Joseph” came to “possess the ‘gates’ of enemy nations,” Mr. Armstrong wrote. “Britain and America came into possession of every such major ‘gate’ in this world!”

Mr. Armstrong showed that the fact that the UK and U.S. acquired all of these strategic oceanic locations proves that these countries are the descendants of Abraham. Referring to Abraham’s grandson, he wrote: “[W]e must be modern Israel.”

The Bible not only prophesied that Abraham’s descendants would come to possess all these foreign sea gates; it also prophesied that these descendants would later lose possession of these gates.

Deuteronomy 28:52 records God’s warning to the descendants of Abraham that if they refuse to turn to Him, then He would cause them to lose possession of those invaluable assets: “[H]e shall besiege thee in all thy gates throughout all thy land, which the Lord thy God hath given thee.”

Mr. Armstrong explained that this was a prophecy that the God-rejecting U.S. and UK would lose control of these sea gates. Mr. Armstrong witnessed the fulfillment of this curse in Britain’s loss of the Suez Canal, Singapore, Malta, Cyprus, the Cape of Good Hope and others.

In 1980, Mr. Armstrong connected Deuteronomy 28:52 with Leviticus 26:19, which says God would “break the pride” of the “power” of the modern nations of Israel to punish them for their rejection of Him. Based on these Bible passages, Mr. Armstrong prophesied that the UK and U.S. would continue to lose their foreign assets: “As the ‘pride of our power’ continues to be broken, as the British continue to lose their foreign sea gates and possessions around the Earth, as America signs away ownership of the Panama Canal—control over this vital sea gate … this focal prophecy alone represents giant proof as to where the modern ‘remnant’ of the peoples of Israel resides today!”

At the time of Mr. Armstrong’s death in 1986, the U.S. still controlled the Panama Canal, and Britain still controlled Hong Kong. But both have since then been surrendered.

At present, the UK still controls a handful of foreign sea gates, including the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar and a now tenuous lease-based grip on Diego Garcia. Britain’s decision to surrender the Chagos Islands shows that as its pride in its power continues to erode, the remaining sea gates may not last.

Mr. Armstrong said that the loss of these sea gates would lead to a time of unprecedented crisis for Britain and America—and for the entire world. But he emphasized that the suffering has a purpose: It will bring the world to repentance and teach all people to love God’s way and His law. That time of suffering will be quickly followed by an era of unprecedented peace.

He wrote:

The prophecies do not stop with revealing the unprecedented multiplied intensity of punishment already beginning to descend upon America and Britain. The prophecies record also the result of that intensified punishment. The result will be a corrected people. The result will be an eye-opening realization of what we have done to ourselves. The supreme punishment will teach us, at last, our lesson! The punishment will break our spirit of rebellion! It will lift us up from the cesspool of rottenness and evil into which we have sunk. It will teach us the way to glorious peace, prosperity, abundant well-being!

On beyond the frightful national calamities now descending upon us will come a blessing inconceivably greater ….

To learn more about these Bible prophecies and the profound hope that is at the heart of them, order your free copy of The United States and Britain in Prophecy.