THE UNITED STATES and BRITISH COMMONWEALTH in Prophecy
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THE UNITED STATES and BRITISH COMMONWEALTH in Prophecy

Chapter XII

THE BIRTHRIGHT — AT ITS ZENITH — AND NOW!

   Just HOW GREAT — just how powerful, and how wealthy did the British and American people become? And what is suddenly happening to us, now? Why has Britain already lost most of her colonies — her possessions — her resources, wealth, power and influence in the world? WHY is Britain no longer Great Britain — a great World Power?
   WHY is the United States now discredited, despised, hated, throughout so much of the world? WHY could we not win the Korean war? WHY can't the United States whip little North Vietnam?
   First, realize just HOW GREAT — how rich and powerful — the American and British people did become.
   People are prone to take their status — and that of their country — for granted. Few realize what unprecedented affluence our countries enjoyed. We judge all things by comparison. The average Briton, Australian or Canadian has never travelled through the illiterate, poverty-stricken, disease-infested backward areas of China, India, the Middle East or black Africa. He has not observed the squalor, the stench, the poverty and wretchedness in which the largest part of mankind lives."
   Nor has the average American visited those vast underprivileged areas, nor even the countries of Europe — prosperous compared to the teeming illiterate masses — yet poor by comparison to American standards.
   No, our people generally have not realized. Nor have they been grateful. Nor have they given God thanks, nor accepted the sense of responsibility imposed on them by their lavish blessings. Few realize that every desired, prized possession imposes, with it, the obligation of responsibility for its use. Does the 8-year-old boy who is given a shiny new bicycle by his parents feel a consciousness for the responsibility imposed on him — unless the fact is impressed on him by his parents — for the care of it, and the carefulness with which he must ride it to avoid injuring himself or others?
   When God lavished on our peoples such wealth and power and economic possession as no peoples ever enjoyed, did we appreciate what we had, or feel the commensurate sense of responsibility for its wise and proper use?
   We did not!
   We didn't even recognize how great was our blessing, let alone a sense of obligation for our custodianship before our Maker!
   Just how great, then, was this Birthright blessing?

The Birthright WEALTH

   Read again the prophetic promises of Genesis 22:17 and 24:60:
   To Abraham God said: "... That in blessing, I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies" (Gen. 22:17).
   And again, the inspired prophetic parting blessing upon Rebekah, leaving her family to become wife of Isaac: "And they blessed Rebekah, and said unto her, 'Thou art out sister, be thou the mother of thousands of millions, and let thy seed possess the gate of those which hate them' " (Gen. 24:60).
   On page 26 we have quoted the correct Fenton translation: "'... and your race shall possess the gates [plural] of its enemies.'" As explained there, the "gates" of enemy nations are the strategic sea gates of entrance to or exit from these nations. Although all wealth conies from the ground, prosperity and affluence on a national scale always has come also by industry and commerce. And commerce between nations has been transacted almost altogether by the sea-lanes of the world — by ships, and, within a continent, by railroads. How significant, then, Robert Fulton operated the first steamboat in 1803 — precisely when Britain and America suddenly began to multiply in national wealth! And also that it was the 19th century that saw the development of the railroads!
   As explained before, since the Birthright pertains to nations, the "gate" of our enemies would be such passes as Gibraltar, Suez, Singapore, Panama Canal, etc.
   Britain and America came into possession of every such major "gate" in this world! So we must be modern Israel. World War II hinged on these "gates." They had become not only strategic passes, but the world's greatest fortifications. But today, we have lost most of them — and it appears that soon Gibraltar and the Panama Canal, too, will be lost.
   WHY?
   Notice Genesis 39:2-23: "The Eternal was with Joseph, and he was a prosperous man... The Eternal was with him, and that which he did the Eternal made to prosper." And God did prosper Joseph's descendants, Britain and America, with the fabulous Birthright promised Joseph's sons!
   Consider Moses' dying, prophetic blessing, foretelling what would happen to each of the tribes in these latter days.
   "And of Joseph he said, Blessed of the Lord be his land, for the precious things of heaven, for the dew, and for the deep that coucheth beneath, and for the precious fruits brought forth by the sun, and for the precious things put forth by the moon, and for the chief things of the ancient mountains, and for the precious things of the lasting hills, and for the precious things of the earth and the fullness thereof... let the blessings come upon the head of Joseph [Ephraim and Manasseh both] ... His glory is like the firstling [firstborn — Birthright holder] of the bullock, and his horns are like the horns of unicorns [Great Britain's national seal today]: with them he shall push the people together to the ends of the earth: and they are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they are the thousands of Manasseh." (Deut. 33:13-17.)
   Whoever is Ephraim and Manasseh today must have been in possession of the earth's choicest agricultural, mineral, and other wealth — the great gold and silver mines; iron, oil, and coal, timber and other resources.
   What nations fulfill these prophecies? Why, only Great Britain and America!
   More than half of all tillable, cultivatable, temperate-zone lands of this earth came, after 1800 A.D. into the possession of our two great powers alone! The rich agricultural lands of the Mississippi Valley; the vast wheat and grain fields of the Northwest, of Canada and Australia; the great forest lands of the Pacific Northwest and many other parts of the world; the gold fields of South Africa, Australia, Alaska and the United States; the great coal mines of the United States and British Isles; the natural waterfalls and means of power and motivation, and consequent prosperous industrial and manufacturing districts of England and eastern United States; the choicest fruit lands of our Pacific Coast and Florida. What other nations combined ever possessed such material wealth?
   And nearly all this wealth came to us after 1800 A.D.!

The Actual Statistics

   Just to what extent has Almighty God fulfilled His promises in us to the descendants of Joseph in these latter years since 1800 A.D. — promises of "the precious fruits brought forth by the sun... the chief things of the ancient mountains... and the precious things of the earth"?
   Said Charles M. Schwab, steel magnate, before the Massachusetts Bankers Association, January 5, 1921: "Our United States has been endowed by God with everything to make it and keep it the foremost industrial and commercial nation of the world."
   World petroleum output in 1950 was almost 3,800 million barrels. Of this total the United States alone produced more than one half — nearly 52%. Together, the British Commonwealth and the United States produced 60% of the crude petroleum, not including our vast foreign investments.
   But by 1966 that 60% of all the world's crude petroleum output had been reduced to 32%.
   Britain and America mined 1% times as much coal as all other nations combined.
   But by 1966 our portion of world production had shrunk to less than 1/3 of the world production — 30.9%!
   Together, the British Commonwealth and America produced, in 1950, 3/4 of the world's steel — the United States alone producing almost 60% or 105,200,000 short tons in 1951.
   We produced 1% times as much pig iron as all other nations combined.
   By 1966, this basic index of wealth had skidded down 1/3 (33.6%) of steel production, and only 17.8% (one sixth) of the pig iron.
   We possessed nearly 95% of the world's nickel (chiefly from Canada); 80% of the world's aluminum; 75% of the zinc. But where do we rate now? 3.6% of world's nickel; 40.2% of its aluminum (aluminium); 12.4% of its zinc.
   The British Commonwealth completely dominated the production of chromite (from South Africa). Today only 2.3%. Together Britain and America produced 2/3 of the world's rubber, and dominated the world's copper, lead, tin, bauxite and other precious metal outputs. But now, we produce only 23.4% of the world's copper, 9.9% of its lead, no tin, and 6.3% of its bauxite (16% with Guyana).
   The British Commonwealth produced 2/3 of the world's gold — about £266,000,000 ($642 million) in 1950 — while the United States had three times as much gold reserve as the total for the rest of the world. But today the U. S. gold supply has been drained until the dollar is in serious jeopardy. The U. S. now produces only 5% of the world's gold and, with the loss of South Africa, Britain will produce even less.
   We produced and utilized % of the world output of electricity — the United States producing 283 thousand million kilowatt-hours in 1948, and the United Kingdom and Canada outstripping Russia, Germany and France combined.
   But now we produce only 20.1%!
   Great Britain and the United States did possess well over half of the world merchant fleet tonnage. But today only 32.5%. The British Isles constructed more vessels than any other place on earth. Today two or three Gentile nations outstrip Britain and America. We also possessed about 1/2 of the world's railroad mileage. Today, our combined railway freight shipping is only 26% of the world total.
   Israelites always were sheep-raising people. Joseph-Israelites did lead the world with more than 220,000,000 sheep, while all Gentile nations combined have only about 182,000,000. Australia produced nearly as much wool as all Gentile nations combined — over one thousand million pounds. Today only 58,316,000 head of sheep — 6.1% — and 8% of wool. This is exclusive of Australia, which alone produces 15.9% of the world's sheep, and 29.2% of the world's wool.
   Of the foodstuffs including milk, cheese, butter, beef, the United States produces about a fourth of the world's total — only a marginal decline over past years so far, but Britain must import nearly all of her food from countries that are fast slipping out of the commonwealth.
   Whereas the United States alone once produced 73% of the automobiles, today the United States combined with U.K. produces 55% — 44% from the U.S. alone. Germany, Prance, Italy and Sweden are making huge gains.
   Of the world total in telephones (about 180 million), the United States stall has 49% — but proportionately it is considerably less than the 67% we had at our peak.
   Americans now own 47% of the world's radio sets and 69% of the world's television sets. In each case. Britain is no longer second. The trend is the same in each category of electrical appliance. We still are the richest by far, but proportionately we have less.

How Did We Get It?

   Now how did we come into possession of all this vast wealth of the earth? Did we acquire it through our own human wisdom, foresight, energy, ability and power?
   Let Abraham Lincoln answer:
   "We find ourselves," he said, "in the peaceful possession of the fairest portion of the earth, as regards fertility of soil, extent of territory, and salubrity of climate... We... find ourselves the legal inheritors of these fundamental blessings. We toiled not in the acquirement or the establishment of them."
   Again, in his proclamation of April 30, 1863, for a nationwide day of fasting and prayer, this great president said: "It is the duty of nations, as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God... and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord... We have been the recipients of the choicest blessings of heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in num- bers, wealth and power as no other nation ever has grown; but we have forgotten God! We have forgotten the gracious Hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own."
   And because Lincoln saw a nation who had forgotten God — a nation drunk with a success not due to its own efforts — a nation taking all the credit and glory to itself, this great president called upon the nation for a day of fasting and prater to confess this national sin before God. The fate of the nation hung in the balance when he issued that proclamation. But God heard and answered that great national prayer offensive — and the nation was then preserved!
   But today the threat to our fate is a thousand times more seriously hanging in the balance. And today we do not have a President or a Prime Minister with the vision, understanding and courage to bring our nations to their knees!
   Abraham Lincoln knew these great material blessings had not been earned, but had been given to our people by the God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel.
   And we should face the facts today and know that we were given all this vast unprecedented material wealth because God promised it, unconditionally, to Abraham. And He promised it to Abraham because Abraham obeyed God, kept God's laws and commandments.
   The Birthright blessing was denied our forefathers after Moses' day because they refused to live by God's laws.
   And today God warns us, through many prophecies in Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Micah, and many others, that unless we of this generation repent of our sins, and turn to Him with fastings, and with weeping, and earnest prayer, He will destroy our cities, all our fortresses, by the hand of the foreign sword; that He will punish us at the hand of a cruel one; that we shall be invaded, defeated, reduced to slaves! God help our nations to heed that warning!
   In conclusion, we ask: If we are not national Israel — so-called "lost" Ten Tribes — prosperous Joseph-Israel — Birthright Israel — actual inheritors of the Birthright blessings which were to be bestowed beginning 1803 A.D., then who else can BE?
   No other nation or combination of nations do or can possess these blessings of the Birthright — for we hold more than two thirds — nearly three fourths — of all the raw materials, resources, and wealth of this entire round earth, and all other nations combined share among them only a small part.
   Do you know of stronger proof of the divine inspiration of the Holy Bible as the revealed Word of the Living God? Could mortal men have written, without divine inspiration, those prophecies we have considered in this book — made those promises to Joseph-Israel, and, after a lapse of 2520 years, beginning the exact years of 1800-1803, have had power to bring them about in fulfillment? These are no small or trifling promises. They involve possession of the great wealth and vast natural resources of the whole earth.
   Present these facts as a challenge to your atheist and agnostic friends. Ask them to answer, if they can, whether any but the power of the Eternal Creator Himself could have made and had committed to writing such promises thousands of years ago, and, at precisely the promised time thousands of years later, brought about their fulfillment!
   How any American — any English-speaking inheritor of God's choicest material blessings — can, in face of such stupendous overwhelming fulfillment of prophecy — such awe-inspiring demonstration of the power and might and faithfulness of Almighty God — accept and partake of these blessings, and then carelessly ignore God's warning that our sins today are increasing, or fail to get to his knees before the great Almighty, and repent, and intercede in heart-rending prayer for all Israelite nations, and help in every way he can to warn our people now of their impending peril, seems impossible to conceive.

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Publication Date: 1967
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