Tough week. Last Thursday on the nyse, several days of skittishness and gloom culminated in a drop in the Dow of more than 500 points. Friday night came S&P’s downgrading of America’s credit rating. The next day, America’s biggest creditor, China, demanded that the U.S. “learn to live within its means” and suggested it slash its military budget.

Anxiety about America’s financial future is understandable, to say the least.

Observers with a thimbleful of sense called the S&P announcement an alarm bell: a warning that America needs to make some big changes if it expects a turnaround. Of course, such alarms have been sounding for decades, yet America’s economic fundamentals—particularly its debt—have gotten worse and worse. Some analysts correctly recognize the S&P downgrade as another mile marker on the road to economic Armageddon.

But here’s the thing: If you are looking for solace and comfort amid all the bad news—soothing words, a pat on the back, assurance that everything’s fine—you can easily find plenty of it.

“Markets will rise and fall, but this is the United States of America. No matter what some agency may say, we have always been and always will be a triple-A country.” These were President Obama’s words on Monday, trying to put fears to rest.

This is America! We’re triple-A no matter what people say—and no matter the facts! It reminded me of reports that show American school kids lagging way behind their international peers in math—yet far surpassing them in self-confidence about their math skills.

People can pretend otherwise, but you know the president’s assurance is false.

“Our problems are eminently solvable, and we know what we have to do to solve them,” he continued. He then proceeded, incredibly, to call for more deficit spending in the form of extending a payroll-tax cut and unemployment benefits.

The speech did nothing to calm the markets. By day’s end, the Dow had dropped 634 more points.

But wait—yesterday it bounced 400 points back up! Maybe all is well after all.

America is in deep trouble. Just look at last week’s debt deal, wherein Washington agreed to “cut” federal spending $900 billion over the coming decade—by increasing spending $7 trillion rather than $8 trillion. It congratulated itself for planning to be $23 trillion in debt 10 years from now, that is, if all goes well. By that point, interest payments on the debt (not paying down the debt—just paying the Chinese for having used money we’d have already spent) would exceed current defense spending. American taxpayers would, in effect, be funding China’s military more than their own.

By what measure is such debt even an AA+ investment? Yet when S&P dropped America’s rating just one notch from the gold-plated AAA, legions of people too smart for their own good strenuously objected, firing off volley after volley of denials: condemnations of S&P; brickbats for lawmakers who pushed for deeper spending cuts, of all things; reassurances about America’s pristine creditworthiness.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner: S&P has “a stunning lack of knowledge about basic U.S. fiscal budget math.” “There is no risk the United States of America would ever not be in a position to meet its obligations.”

Warren Buffett: The downgrade “doesn’t make sense.” (His reasoning: All the government’s debts are owed in dollars, “which it can print at will.” Voilà!)

The New York Times: “[T]here is no reason to take Friday’s downgrade of America seriously. These are the last people whose judgment we should trust.”

The Wall Street Journal: “Despite S&P’s opinion, there is no chance that America will default on its debts.”

A Princeton economics professor emeritus: “There are several reasons for optimism that in the long run we will see higher, not lower, market valuations. … My advice for investors is to stay the course.”

National Review’s economics editor: “Do not panic. … [T]he growing fear of U.S. recession may not pan out. … Our financial system is in vastly better shape than it was in September 2008. Vastly better shape” (emphasis his).

Feeling better?

It’s remarkable how stubborn the mind can be in clinging to a lie in the face of contrary evidence. We’re triple-A and always will be? China isn’t buying it. And Americans won’t have the luxury of believing it much longer either.

This nation’s economy is a poorly constructed, towering wall that, at every sign of its fundamental weakness, has been “reinforced” with a fresh coat of whitewash.

The Trumpet has prophesied of America’s economic collapse for decades. Herbert W. Armstrong foretold it for decades before us. One could look at the numbers and recognize that a crunch point was inevitable, but that wasn’t fundamentally what informed our warnings. It was biblical prophecy.

The prognosis in prophecy for the United States is dismal. It’s not pleasant to study—but amid all the doublespeak and chicanery we hear today, the truth is actually refreshing!

The plain scriptural understanding Mr. Armstrong reveals in The United States and Britain in Prophecy gives us clear eyes to recognize current trends for exactly what they are: nothing less than the catastrophic fall of the greatest single nation in human history. Signs are everywhere: moral decline; family breakdown; leadership void; shrinking military; destroyed military will; unbridled immigration; race problems; violence within cities; decline in health; weather disasters and other agricultural curses; terrorism; decline in manufacturing; runaway debt; bust economy. It’s all happening just as God said it would.

Consider this warning God gave through the Prophet Ezekiel in light of America’s blind financial gurus: “My hand will be against the prophets who see false visions and who give lying divinations. … Precisely because they have misled my people, saying, ‘Peace,’ when there is no peace, and because, when the people build a wall, these prophets smear it with whitewash, [God commands His prophet:] say to those who smear it with whitewash that it shall fall!” (Ezekiel 13:9-11, English Standard Version).

Read the verses that follow: They speak of God personally bringing down that wall using increasingly violent means.

Do you recognize whitewash when you see it? If not, keep watching. God will make sure you don’t miss it.