You and I are living through a seismic shift in human history: the end of the American era.

Maybe it’s for the best.

Or so Fareed Zakaria would have you think.

“[T]he distribution of power is shifting, moving away from American dominance,” says Zakaria, a journalist and foreign affairs commentator, in his new book, The Post-American World. “In terms of war and peace, economics and business, ideas and art, this will produce a landscape that is quite different from the one we have lived in until now—one defined and directed from many places and by many peoples.”

Yes, this trend is off the Richter scale in magnitude, he says. But the grown-up thing to do is not to worry. Accept it. Embrace it.

“The post-American world is naturally an unsettling prospect for Americans, but it should not be,” he writes. A recent poll shows four out of five Americans believe the U.S. is on the “wrong track.” There is a general sense of pessimism over this clearly perceptible drift from power. But Zakaria argues that what we’re seeing is a good thing—borne not of America’s decline but of the rest of the world’s success. “It is the result of a series of positive trends that have been progressing over the last 20 years, trends that have created an international climate of unprecedented peace and prosperity.”

Zakaria’s editor at Newsweek, Jon Meacham, acknowledges that America faces some “enormous challenges” in the world today, but adds, “to act as though the sky’s falling is not a particularly mature reaction to the actual data.”

In this remarkable worldview, everything is a matter of perspective. Yes, Islamist terrorists are a problem—but they’re on the run and their numbers are dwindling; oh, and most Muslims don’t support violence. Okay, anti-Americanism is boiling over in the Middle East—but those nations are enjoying unprecedented prosperity; the more they modernize, the less they’ll want to wage war. Granted, Iran could get nuclear weapons and incinerate Israel—but that’s nothing compared to the German threat in World War ii. Sure, it feels like the economy is reeling and the world is burning—but that’s only because everything gets exaggerated in the Internet Age.

The appropriate American response, Zakaria argues, is to let go of outmoded pretensions of superpower and adapt. Settle into second-tier status and enjoy the everybody-wins atmosphere of our new multipolar world. “[A]s other nations become more active internationally, they will seek greater freedom of action. This necessarily means that America’s unimpeded influence will decline,” he writes. “But if the world that’s being created has more power centers, nearly all are invested in order, stability and progress. … This benefits them but also us. It’s the ultimate win-win.”

Are you as excited as he is?

If we are really to believe, as Zakaria apparently does, that “This is one of the most thrilling stories in history,” we must overlook several stark realities.

The first is that, his sunny spin on a few select statistics notwithstanding, this is not merely about “the rise of the rest”—though rising they are. America as we know it is, in fact, going down—and fast.

Consider the dollar’s rapid decline as the world’s reserve currency; the loss of global confidence over America’s financial mismanagement; the corruption in American business; the flight of American industry; the loss on a variety of fronts of American self-sufficiency; the decay in infrastructure; the breaching of borders; the aging of military equipment; the decline in educational standards; the decay in morality; the vacuum of history and identity; the breaking of will; the fracturing of long-held alliances; the inability to achieve international priorities in peacemaking and war-making—these are just a few of the stories we’ve tracked recently.

These developments are inextricably linked with the reality that, as the rest of the nations rise, they are often making a deliberate point to stand independent of—and hence in contradiction to—America’s interests. In some cases, they are purposefully, maliciously working to knock the United States down a peg.

And we’re not only talking about Venezuela and Iran, but also big players like Russia and China. Even alliances the U.S. has nurtured over decades—with Turkey, with Pakistan, with Egypt, with Saudi Arabia and others, not to mention with Britain, Israel and Australia—are, to various degrees, fraying.

The idea that, as other countries grow, “the pie expands and everyone wins” hinges on a fundamental trust in these foreign powers to play fair, to embrace America in its diminished global role and essentially commit to a new peaceful, global equilibrium. History has proven time and again that trust is woefully misplaced.

There are always actors on the world scene determined to flip the status quo on its head. A weakened superpower isn’t a signal of a peaceful transition to something better. It’s an invitation to revolution.

The idea that the comfortable era of Western (particularly American) dominance we are leaving behind will be replaced by a comfortable era of harmony among numerous great powers ignores the seemingly hardwired human tendency, in the absence of a strong outside authority, to compete for supremacy. You see it on an elementary school playground as readily as you do on the international stage. And that competition, history shows, invariably turns violent.

The signs are already there. Today as the United States declines in strength, three significant power blocs have emerged: a radical Islamic resurgence led by Iran, a united Europe, and an integrating Asia. Efforts to dethrone the U.S. are visible in all three. Just as important, the seeds of future competition among the three have already begun to sprout.

This world is hurtling toward a time when American influence will be not only countered by these three power blocs, but also eliminated from global politics. Then these three superpowers-in-waiting will scramble for the lead.

Believe it or not, that competition among them was specifically prophesied by Jesus Christ.

During Christ’s ministry, His disciples asked, “[W]hat will be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age?” (Matthew 24:3, Revised Standard Version). Jesus didn’t dismiss the idea that the world as we know it would come to an end. No—He responded by warning His disciples of specific events to beware of (found in Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21). He concluded with the words, “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” (Luke 21:36).

One third of the world’s population considers itself Christian. So it should hardly seem unusual or unorthodox to take Jesus at His word. Do you?

In one of these specific signs, Christ said that the people of “Jerusalem” would “fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled” (verse 24).

Who are the Gentiles? If we are to watch for this sign, we must know.

The common idea that any non-Jew is a Gentile is false. A careful study reveals that the modern identity of the tribes of the biblical nation of Israel—of which Judah, or the Jews, is only one—includes, most prominently, the United States. If you have not proven this truth, a reading of our free book The United States and Britain in Prophecy by Herbert W. Armstrong is critical.

Christ prophesied that—barring mankind’s repentance—we are about to enter a time when America’s global influence will be snuffed out, and Gentile powers will wreak unimaginable havoc on the Earth.

Jerusalem, the literal city located in modern-day Judah, will be “trodden down of the Gentiles.” Revelation 11:2 also shows how the Gentiles shall “tread under foot” the “holy city” for 42 months—or 3½ years. But Bible prophecy also uses Jerusalem, the capital of ancient Israel, to denote the entirety of prophetic Israel—chiefly the American and British peoples.

This seismic shift in geopolitical momentum—away from America and toward a clutch of non-Israelite, or Gentile, powers, accompanied by an escalation in brutal violence and war—is one of the visible signs Jesus Christ gave of His imminent return!

The darkness and evil that are about to flood this globe presage the most wonderful news in human history! They signal the hope of a new world, governed by God, which will begin when the darkness has passed.

But what darkness. Christ said “the times of the Gentiles” would be a period of suffering “such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time [the end time—our day today], no, nor ever shall be” (Matthew 24:21). That time is just ahead.

That is how close we are to the ringing down of this present age! And still the world at large is almost wholly unaware of what is about to occur. Despite the tumult of change and clamor of irreconcilable interests worldwide, people carelessly assume, with irresponsible, unfounded optimism, that mankind will somehow work things out.

It will not. In fact, the Bible says unequivocally that if God Himself did not intervene to stop it, mankind would annihilate itself! (verse 22). The fact that God will intervene is the only hope for a world bent on its own destruction. But it is a sure hope!

You must not ignore these momentous global shifts, nor should you fail to understand them. The Trumpet is your guide. Your early-warning news source.

The inexorable march of end-time events is happening. The years ahead will be full of horrifying shocks to a world asleep. We urge you to prepare yourself by taking the Trumpet seriously—and acting upon what you read.