In Matthew 24:14 Christ Himself declared, “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.” When God declares a prophecy, it will be fulfilled. So let’s ask and answer the question: Was God’s gospel declared to Afghanistan?

Ten years ago in Bonn, Germany, influential Afghans and global elites gathered under the auspices of the United Nations to craft a program for the solidification of a stable self-sustainable government in Kabul.

A decade on from the U.S.-led invasion of the country following the 9/11 attacks, old and new faces gathered again to update what has become known as the Afghan Bonn Agreement. The attending parties made that agreement “Determined to end the tragic conflict in Afghanistan and promote national reconciliation, lasting peace, stability and respect for human rights in the country, Reaffirming the independence, national sovereignty and territorial integrity of Afghanistan, Acknowledging the right of the people of Afghanistan to freely determine their own political future ….”

That same goal was sought half a century ago by prominent Afghan diplomat Abdul Rahman Pazhwak. Having been a well-known member of the UN General Assembly since 1948 and Afghanistan’s chairman to each session since 1958, Pazhwak was also president of the 21st Session of the Assembly during 1966-67.

In the early 1970s, Abdul Rahman Pazhwak served for short periods as Afghanistan’s ambassador to India. During that time Herbert W. Armstrong’s relationship with key figures in India was opening doors to many other nations. In 1973 he spoke as guest of honor to distinguished guests at luncheons and dinners in Bangkok, Saigon, Manila, Addis Ababa, Tokyo and New Delhi. “At New Delhi,” Mr. Armstrong wrote to co-workers on Jan. 27, 1974, “I spoke to one hundred of India’s very top people—members of the cabinet, members of parliament, judges, leading businessmen, some ambassadors from other nations.”

That same luncheon was to bear some fruit for Afghanistan. An open door was offered for the gospel to be preached to its leadership. “In March 1973, at a luncheon in New Delhi, India, attended by some ambassadors, I was invited by the ambassadors from Ethiopia and Afghanistan to visit their countries for personal meetings with their respective kings” (ibid, Feb. 21, 1975). That same year, Mr. Armstrong did visit Ethiopia’s emperor and began the groundwork toward reaching Afghanistan.

He recalled, “The Afghanistan ambassador invited me to visit his country and have a meeting with King Zahir Shah. Before I could arrange to visit Afghanistan, the government was overthrown; and the king fled into exile” (ibid, Nov. 5, 1975).

It happened that while the king was visiting Italy for a medical procedure, his cousin staged a coup and established a republican government in his absence. The king abdicated rather than risk civil war, and was exiled to Italy, where he remained for 29 years. His cousin’s reign was short due to his assassination in 1978 in another coup led by the Communist Party of Afghanistan. In 1979, the Russian Red Army invaded. After a 10-year occupation, the Soviets withdrew, exhausted by the tenacious fighting of Afghan rebels. From 1989 to 2001, the country boiled over into civil warfare featuring various factions and elements ably supported by Pakistan, the Taliban and al Qaeda. Then came the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan.

In 2002, the aging Zahir Shah was invited back to Kabul to open an emergency session of the Afghan Parliament, the Loya Jirga, which the Afghan Bonn Agreement of 2001 had called for.

Many delegates of the Loya Jirga were prepared to vote the king back into power in preference to the U.S.-backed candidate, Hamid Karzai. Under U.S. pressure, the king stepped aside and was ceremonially honored in the country’s constitution as “father of the nation.” Zahir Shah would sit next to Hamid Karzai as he took the presidential oath office on Dec. 7, 2004. Karzai would later appoint relatives and supporters of the former king to influential jobs in the transitional government.

Afghanistan’s last king moved back into his palace in Kabul to live out the remainder of his days, dying in 2007. One is left to wonder if Afghan diplomat Abdul Rahman Pazhwak shared any of the message he heard in India from Herbert Armstrong about the coming Kingdom of God with the king.

Did God’s gospel reach the king of Afghanistan? Was the nation warned?

“The people are responsible to the government. The government therefore controls radio, television, and so far as possible what is taught to the people,” wrote Herbert Armstrong. “In God’s sight, the king is the kingdom, or nation. For example, in Daniel’s prophecy of the 7th chapter, ‘These great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which shall arise out of the earth …’ (verse 17). And in verse 23, ‘The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth ….’ When I get Christ’s vital message of the Kingdom of God—His gospel—to the king, president, prime minister—and others high in the government in such nations, I have, in God’s sight, gotten His message to that nation or kingdom” (ibid, Jan. 27, 1974).

As U.S. troops plan withdrawal from the Afghan theater, Iran looks east with the lust for possession of its neighbor. The war-torn Islamic state is ripe for the picking. Watch for maneuvers by Iran, supported by Russia and China, to destabilize Afghanistan with the intent of ultimately filling the vacuum created by U.S. withdrawal. For more understanding on this, read Gerald Flurry’s booklet The King of the South.

However, any such partnership under the banner of Iranian-led radical Islam will be short-lived. There will soon be another Afghan Bonn Agreement—but not as cordial as that concluded over the past decade. Bible prophecy forecasts a final resurrection of the Holy Roman Empire rising out of Europe to sweep away any radical Islamic resistance to its imperial ambitions (Daniel 11:40; Revelation 13:1-4; 17:1-14).

But then, believe it or not, there will be one more King to reign in Afghanistan! The King of kings!

Thank Almighty God that He will soon intervene to ultimately eliminate the failed empires of men, together with all the pain and suffering they have brought on this world. Then He will establish the loving government of God over the whole family of humankind, even as declared to so many world leaders by Herbert Armstrong when he delivered the good news, the very gospel of the Kingdom of God, to so many during his lifetime (Daniel 2:44, Revelation 11:15).

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