Unless one’s head is stuck in the sand of self-deceit, it surely must be glaringly obvious from recent events that the British and American peoples are in extremely rapid descent into chaos.

The Second World War finished with Britain’s dramatic, sudden loss of imperial power with the nation devolving over the following half-century into a second-rate island welfare state. The end results of the British welfare state were glaringly displayed in the graphic images of British cities burning last week.

Following World War ii, the United States quickly filled the global leadership vacuum created by the collapse of British power.

Yet what Britain had possessed for 200 years—global military and economic dominance—America has enjoyed for but a tenth of that time.

From the towering heights of unipolar power gained after the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1990, it has taken America barely 20 years to wreck its national economy, totally confuse its own society by misguided political and judicial judgments, and divorce its system of governance from the virtues embedded in its national Constitution.

In the process, America has squandered its opportunity to be an example to the world as a peacemaker through the wisest use of its once massive power.

More and more, the mass media are denigrating America and pointing to its catastrophic descent as a global power. This is particularly the case in Europe—especially Germany.

Deutsche Welle called the U.S. a “creaking superpower” last week, whose “reputation as a leading global power is taking a battering on the world stage. … The superpower is also looking at a political crisis—both domestically and internationally” (August 9).

The same source further commented that “the world’s powers mostly shuddered at the thought of a United States in decline.” And well they may if only they were aware of which nation will soon take over as the leading light of “the West”—and it won’t be China!

If those who sacrificed so much to destroy Hitler’s crazed attempts to rule the world 70 years ago were to read of one of his countrymen of today pontificating on America’s moral descent, surely they would stand aghast. Yet that is exactly what the maverick millionaire publisher of the leftist der Freitag did in a scathing piece on the U.S. last week. The shame of it all is that much of what he said is right.

Voicing what is quickly becoming more of a general opinion in Germany concerning the U.S. than many will admit, Jakob Augstein quipped, “Increasingly, the divided country has more in common with a failed state than a democracy. In the face of America’s apparent political insanity, Europe must learn to take care of itself” (Spiegel Online, August 4; emphasis added throughout).

The airing of such opinions in Germany is aiding a rising anti-American view of its nato ally. In the process, it is promoting the idea of Europe severing its ties to the Atlantic alliance—“Europe must learn to take care of itself.”

But what is really startling is Augstein’s contention that America—for 65 years the leading light of the West and hence of the peak of civilization as the world knows it—has divorced itself from the Western values and traditions on which the nation was not only founded but for which it became an exemplar to the rest of the world. Such a view automatically places the nations that ostensibly still hold to the “Western tradition,” i.e., Catholic Europe, in a position as the sole remaining repository of those standards. Augstein continued:

The word “West” used to have a meaning. It described common goals and values, the dignity of democracy and justice over tyranny and despotism. Now it seems to be a thing of the past. There is no longer a West, and those who would like to use the word—along with Europe and the United States in the same sentence—should just hold their breath. By any definition, America is no longer a Western nation.Society is not only divided socially and politically—in its ideological blindness the nation is moving even further away from the core of democracy. … America has changed. It has drifted away from the West.The country’s social disintegration is breathtaking. …

The poor man’s online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, describes the term “the West” as meaning “Western culture or civilization derived from European origin.” It is this that Augstein has in mind as defining “the West.”

In that sense most objective observers might view Augstein’s opinion of America as correct. But it’s the extension of this view, implying that Europe alone can fill the moral, political, economic, defense and security vacuum created by America’s divorce from “the West,” that is deeply concerning: “From a European perspective, it all looks very strange: It’s a different political culture. There are other rules at play, different standards. More and more we view America with the clear notion that we are different. … Nevertheless, at least one good opportunity springs from America’s fate: The further the United States distances itself from us, the more we will (have to) think for ourselves, as Europeans. The West? That’s us” (ibid).

Augstein is much closer to reality than he may realize. Bible prophecy forecasts that a European power, led by his own nation, will fill the gap created by the demise of America, the “creaking superpower”!

Today the world looks to Germany to create the climate, set the rules and provide the political will to rescue the world from global financial chaos. Just listen to the market analysts each day this week as they loudly proclaim their waiting on Germany for a clear signal as to its lead in the current global crisis.

In this respect, a startling piece published on the weekend by the German newspaper Welt, titled “Germany Becomes the Paymaster of Europe,” is worthy of note, most particularly for the views it quotes from German bankers and economists. In particular, the opinion of Asoka Wöhrmann, chief fund manager of dws, the investment company of Deutsche Bank, is worth considering in relation to Germany’s bankers now supporting the introduction of a eurobond. Wöhrmann declares, “‘If political stability is upheld it will ensure that the eurobond will calm the situation.’ … It would create a highly liquid market …. ‘The euro could even rise to the world’s reserve currency’” (August 13; translation ours throughout).

Welt then quotes Michael Huether, director of the Institute of German Economy, as declaring: “‘This is a turning point. [N]ow the markets have turned to debt intolerance.’ … The current turmoil enables us to make adjustments to monetary policy. … ‘This now becomes a question of political will.’”

Consider those statements in relation to America’s decline. U.S. government policy is to create more debt in the foolish belief that such a policy will lead to economic recovery. This flies in the face of a global market that is now seeking to flee debt—“the markets have turned to debt intolerance.” The world has lost confidence in an America out of step with global market opinion. It hungers for an alternative to the declining dollar.

Global elites are looking for an instrument in which they can have faith for long-term investment to aid global economic recovery. Germany’s bankers and financial experts support the introduction of a eurobond. One expert claims that not only would the introduction of a eurobond lead to economic recovery—“create a highly liquid market”—but it could even allow the euro to replace the dollar as “the world’s reserve currency”!

The fact that this global crisis has worked to Germany’s distinct advantage is reflected in the director of the Institute of German Economy declaring that “The current turmoil enables us to make adjustments to monetary policy.” That’s exactly what Stratfor recently inferred: “Germany reaps some benefit from the continuation of the crisis. So long as bond markets are pressuring EU states, those states are forced to come to Germany to humbly ask for assistance. This assistance comes with a price that the Germans are now able to name. … So long as the crisis does not spiral out of control, Germany actually needs the market pressure to steadily rewire the European architecture more to its liking. Berlin actually has a vested interest in keeping the crisis—and several EU states—on an aggressive simmer” (August 9).

To this, the market in general, and most pundits, seem quite blind. Yet it is absolutely consistent with the message that we have been trumpeting in print and via television for decades, and via this website for as long as it has existed. Now it’s current-day REALITY!

Imagine that! The prophecy of Herbert Armstrong that a failure of the global financial system would lead to the rise of Germany to dominate the globe for a moment with massive imperial power is actually the stuff of daily news today!

“Germany” is now on the lips of all major players on the world’s stock markets and figures rampantly in the opinions expressed daily by financiers, economists and market analysts. “Germany is the paymaster of Europe”! Not only that, the whole world awaits Germany’s decision to float a eurobond, the introduction of which may destroy the dollar’s rapidly fading standing as a world currency. This would place Germany in the chief seat as “global paymaster”!

Even as the U.S. debt escalates to galactic proportions, with Congress dithering in its own abject self-serving corruption, even as England’s cities burn—both situations dramatically demonstrating the chaotic fall of the Anglo-Saxon nations—Germany rises apace to imperial greatness.

That this was all prophesied has been one of the Trumpet’s most consistent messages for the past 22 years and, during last century, for nigh on 60 years from our mentor, Herbert W. Armstrong—the message that Germany would rise in tandem with Rome to dominate the global system for one more brief time in history—the prophesied seventh and final resurrection of the Holy Roman Empire!

Few listened to Herbert Armstrong last century. Many mocked. Of those who did listen, few remained steadfast in that knowledge. Now that it is hardcore reality of the day, most remain blinded to it.

This is all so consistent with the biblical prophecy that speaks of our day being a parallel of the days of Noah: “For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until the day that Noe entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the son of man be” (Matthew 24:38).

Be it the collapse of order in British society or the breathtaking loss of American power, the root cause is one of moral proportions. At the heart of that moral dilemma of the British and American peoples lies a spiritual vacuum.

The patience of the Creator of mankind, longing for the repentance of man from endemic sin, is at an end. Curse upon curse is mounting daily on the peoples of America, Britain and the Jewish nation. Expect this turn of events to gather pace rapidly as time accelerates toward that which Jesus Christ prophesied as a massive sign of God’s intervention in human affairs to stop the rot: “For then shall be great tribulation such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened” (verse 21).

Even amid the horror of the greatest correction to be brought by God upon a sinful mankind since the Flood, our Creator extends mercy by cutting those days of correction short. The reason He does so is most profound. You need to read our booklet The Epistles of Peter—A Living Hope to not only discover that reason, but to see how you can be a vital contributor to that hope!