When Princess Elizabeth married Philip Mountbatten in November 1947, Winston Churchill welcomed the wedding as a “flash of color on the hard road we travel.”

To Churchill, a lifelong servant of imperial Britain, the monarchy embodied the greatest attributes of the British Empire, the indomitable English spirit, the wealth and splendor of the Commonwealth, the class, culture and quality of English civilization. To Churchill and most of the British, the royal family was the face of Britain. Coming less than two years after the dark days of World War ii, when England was still licking its wounds, the public wedding of a young, radiant princess was exactly what Britain needed. The royal wedding would give Britain a shot of inspiration, a much-needed reminder of Britain’s magnificent heritage.

To Churchill, the royal wedding would signal to Britain’s subjects, and to the world, that Britain was alive and well!

Tomorrow, the world will witness another royal wedding. Although it will be a similarly grand affair—one that has already garnered wall-to-wall media coverage and that will be viewed by more than 2 billion people—the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton has not been greeted with nearly the same genuine enthusiasm and support that the prince’s grandmother enjoyed. In fact, tomorrow’s wedding has been met with widespread apathy, and in many instances outright hostility.

Last month, the icm polling institute performed a survey in England in which 79 percent of respondents said they were “largely indifferent” or “couldn’t care less” about the wedding. Another poll found that although 35 percent of British adults planned to watch the wedding on television, the same proportion intended to ignore the event, with the balance saying they had made no specific plans for the day. Today the average Brit views the monarchy much like 23-year-old Irishman Daniel Murphy, who says “the monarchy belongs to another age.”

Then there are the anti-royalists, which comprise about 20 percent of the population. Their ranks have swelled since Prince William announced his engagement last year. Republic, Britain’s main republican campaign organization, for example, has seen it membership jump by roughly 50 percent since the announcement. Meanwhile, in the weeks leading up to tomorrow’s event, anti-royalists like widely read leftist journalist Johann Hari have waged a full-frontal assault on the monarchy. In a recent piece titled “This Royal Frenzy Should Embarrass Us All,” Hari explained that it wasn’t the wedding he opposed, but the “orgy of deference, snobbery and worship for the hereditary principle that will take place before, during and after it.”

Much of the world is also enamored too, but not in a good way. To foreigners the wedding is more of a spectacle, a form of entertainment, than an event to be watched with reverence. In America, the wedding and the monarchy in general has been mocked by pundits across the media spectrum, from comedian Jerry Seinfeld to “conservative” Fox News bigwig Bill O’Reilly. The consensus the world over is much the same as Hari’s: The British monarchy is a relic, a joke, nothing more than a “rolling media road show selling nothing but itself.”

The reason for this widespread and growing apathy and hostility gets back to how people see Britain.

Sixty-four years ago, the wedding of Princess Elizabeth mattered because in the minds of the British and the world alike, Britain still mattered. In Churchill’s day, the royal family was exceptional, and deserved respect and admiration, because Britain was exceptional, and deserved respect and admiration. The royal family was Britain’s family, the face of the Commonwealth—the symbol of Britain’s global prestige and splendor.

Today, the British monarchy is widely considered irrelevant because Britain is widely considered irrelevant. The royal family is no longer a priority because the Britain the royals have historically represented—a global entity with terrific power and influence that gave the world a system of superior morals, politics and laws, that advanced global standards in politics, education and finances—is no longer a priority. The British monarchy doesn’t matter because the Britain it embodies—the respectable and mighty force in the world—no longer matters.

In fact, it’s worse than that. Today, the monarchy as an institution is anathema to the modern liberal sophisticate. Amid our culture of multiculturalism and multilateralism, of political correctness and tolerance for evil, a culture that seeks to destroy tradition and stamp out Christian values and morality, the monarchy as an institution embodies everything this liberal culture detests. As an enduring institution rooted in tradition and Christendom, the monarchy is the enemy of the radical liberal.

For Winston Churchill, who believed the ultimate value of the monarchy lay in its enduring role as the face of a great and independent nation, the apathy and hostility with which the royal family is being treated today would be deeply disturbing. But Churchill is not alone. In fact, God is even more upset by the apathy and hostility displayed toward the institution of the monarchy, by the British, by foreigners, and even by some members of the royal family.

For those prepared to read and believe their Bible, there is a dimension to the royal family that most people today simply do not understand: God created the British monarchy as a window through which mankind can begin to understandHis plan!

In a recent column I explained how the British royal family was set in place as the result of a promise God made to Abraham, and later to King David. That thrilling promise is explained thoroughly in The United States and Britain in Prophecy, a book you need to read if you seek to understand the prophetic significance of tomorrow’s wedding. In short, God promised King David that He would establish a royal dynasty beginning with his son Solomon, and that that royal lineage would continue ruling on a throne until the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Believe it or not, Britain’s royals are descendants of King David—and therefore are living manifestations of God’s promise!

But the institution of the monarchy is important for another reason.

Throughout the Bible, in both the Old and New Testaments, God reveals His ideal form of government. The Old Testament revolves primarily around the nation of Israel, a nation created by God after He rescued the Israelites from Egypt. Do you have any idea what form of government God gave the nation of Israel? It was a constitutional monarchy! The constitution was the law of God, revealed by God to Moses at Mt. Sinai (Exodus 20). And the line of kings, as Herbert Armstrong explained, began with God Himself!

The point is, while much of the world scorns the monarchical form of government, this form of government is embraced by God!

God’s advocacy of the institution of monarchy is on even greater display in the New Testament. Every Christian knows that when Jesus Christ came to Earth as a human He spent His lifetime preaching His Father’s gospel message. That message, as Christ so often explained, revolved around His Second Coming and the establishment of the “Kingdom of God” on Earth. What is Christ’s role in this coming empire? Read in Luke 1:30-33 where it was prophesied, even prior to Christ’s human birth, that He was destined to inherit a royal dynasty and to reign as king over a “kingdom.” In Revelation 19, Jesus Christ is called the “King of kings.”

The gospel message is all about a kingdom ruled by a royal family, with Jesus Christ Himself as King of kings.

Clearly, God does not abhor a monarchical style of government!

Truly, the British monarchy as an enduring institution furnishes some exhilarating insight into the mind of God. Yet Britain and the rest of the world is ready to get rid of it!

Before we conclude, it must be noted that while our admiration and reverence of the British monarchy runs deep, we do not seek for a moment to imply the behavior and character of some members of the royal family are above reproach. In many instances, they are reprehensible and disgusting, and intensely upsetting to God!

Nevertheless, the magnificent institution that Queen Elizabeth, Prince Charles, Prince William—and now Kate Middleton—are privileged to be a part of has God’s fingerprints all over it!

Churchill was right to value the role of the royal family in English history. Truly, the monarchy is the face of Britain, an institution that even today still brings to mind the glory and splendor of bygone days, a time when Britain presided—imperfectly, yet with comparative civility and altruism—over the world.

If you can spare the time, take a few moments to at least catch the highlights of tomorrow’s wedding. When you do, look past the pomp and pageantry, the emotion and commotion, and even past the imagery reminding the world of Britain’s former wealth and splendor. If possible, perhaps with words of The United States and Britain in Prophecy in mind, look past the physical and strive to capture the great spiritual truths buried within the British monarchy. Believe it or not, they are there—and God wants you to understand them!

And this, above all, is why the world needs England’s monarchy.