Herbert W Armstrong

   You know, brethren, as we look around, the things that are transpiring in the world today, having just yesterday, I'm sure many of you remember, you know, firsthand the significance of yesterday in terms of an anniversary, December 7th, of course harkening back to December 7th, 1941. It's interesting, I think Mr. Armstrong was meeting yesterday with the brother of the Emperor of Japan, and I don't know whether the significance of the date, I'm sure somebody thought of it before all was said and done. I don't know if that had anything to do with the date the meeting was set up, but it is interesting, the things that have transpired, the things that have gone, that have happened over the course of the years.

   And you look now at some of the crises this nation is facing. The Iranian crisis which drags on day after day, gone on for a number of weeks now. The great instability there in the Middle East, the whole threat to our supplies of petroleum imported from the Middle East, the energy crisis that we're becoming more familiar with here in this country that we're having to deal with.

   And as we look at the things that are going on and as we look at situations like Iran where various foreign nations kind of thumb their nose at us and we are a laughing stock, we are someone to be jeered at, to be ridiculed, to be put down. If you look at the situation that now is and harken back to a period of a few years ago, back in the time of August 15th, 1945 as World War II drawn to a close, and the United States of America stood at a pinnacle of power. The idea that some foreign nation was going to come in and take over one of our embassies and hold our ambassador and our embassy staff hostage would have been absolutely unthinkable in the fall of 1945.

   As the United States stood at a pinnacle of power, we possessed atomic weaponry, the only nation on the face of the earth that did, the atom bomb which we of course dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The United States stood at a pinnacle not only in terms of military, but we were number one in finance, we were number one in military, we were number one in industry. And that was without question. We possessed power, and we possessed a pride of that power. The United States was looked to. It was respected. Our flag commanded respect wherever in the world it might be.

   Coming on down even a few years later, 1950, 1951, that particular time period, the United States, together with the British Commonwealth nations, possessed, owned outright 60% of the world's petroleum. 60%, we didn't have any energy crisis. We owned it. And what we didn't own outright, we control because nations like Saudi Arabia, though not directly a British possession, British troops were there. They were under British and American dominance. Our oil companies were the ones that were producing the petroleum there in the Middle East.

   Britain controlled outright many of the nations, in fact, during World War II, Britain controlled outright most of the nations there, most of the entire Middle East. But even at that time, even a matter of 30 years ago, we possessed, we own 60% of all the petroleum in the world. We own 60% of the coal, 75% of all the steel. And gold, you know, today gold has gone up, of course, over $400 an ounce, and our gold is being depleted very rapidly. Back a matter of 30 years ago, over three-quarters of all of the world's gold was possessed by the United States and British Commonwealth. Over three-quarters of all the gold on the face of the earth was owned by us, by our nations. Over half the world's merchant fleet tonnage flew under American or British flags.

   Well, that's not where we are today, is it? We see situations whether it's in Iran, and if it's not Iran, it's other places. Iran is not some unique situation. It is unique in the sense of the degree to which it is gone, but this type of thing has been happening and has been transpiring in terms of our being having other nations thumbing their nose at us.

   Well, today, brethren, we are facing various of these crises and I think that we need to understand a little more clearly about how we came to achieve the pinnacle of power that we have. A lot of times we kind of have the idea, well, you know, it was American ingenuity, it was American know-how, we somehow carved this out. Because of our great foresight, because of our great leaders, because of our great system of government, we somehow carved out and accomplished all of these great things. And we look upon ourselves as having accomplished all of this.

   Well, that is not the way that it came about. God warned us. This type of attitude would be prevalent. He tells us back in the book of Deuteronomy 8:7, "For the Eternal your God brings you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley and vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of oil olive and honey, a land wherein you shall eat bread without scarceness, you shall not lack anything in it, a land whose stones are iron and out of whose hills you may dig brass."

   God said, "I am bringing you into a rich land, a verdant land, a land that is overflowing with natural resources, a land that is a rich agricultural land. It's not a desert, it's not a place with depleted soil that is rocky and barren and can't grow anything. I'm bringing you into a rich, verdant land, the breadbasket of the world. I'm bringing you into a land of great mineral wealth. I'm bringing you into a land where you will be virtually self-sufficient." That's what God says here. "You shall not lack anything in it." Of course, we certainly possess that kind of land.

   God goes on and says in verse 10, "Now when you've eaten to the full, you've eaten and are full, then you shall bless the Eternal your God for the good land which he has given you." Now is that what we've done as a nation? We've eaten and are full as we achieve our pinnacle. We blessed the Eternal our God who gave us all these things? Oh no. No, you see, as we reached our pinnacle, we begin to degenerate more and more in terms of morals, in terms of the basic standards that we live our lives according to, and we've seen the decades go by and the decadence of our nation from a moral standpoint increase. We've seen the ingratitude.

   I'm always reminded of the little sign that I saw up in a store prior to Thanksgiving that sums up the attitude that a lot of people have. Little sign up that said "Happy Turkey Day." Now that's the attitude that a lot of people have. It's simply, they only set aside one day out of the year anyway, you know, instead of being thankful the whole time, and most people really are not, then that simply gets lost in the shuffle because they're trying to get Christmas going and they sell more for Christmas than they will for anything else.

   Well, God says, "When you've eaten and are full, you shall bless the Eternal your God." That's when you really ought to appreciate what God has given us. "Beware that you forget not the Eternal your God and not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command you this day. Lest when you have eaten and are full and have built goodly houses and dwell therein. And when your herds and your flocks multiply and your silver and your gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up and you forget the Eternal your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt from the house of bondage, who led you through that great and terrible wilderness."

   It goes on in verse 17, "And you shall say in your heart, my power and the might of my hand has gotten me this wealth." We have carved it out, we have accomplished it. We, as a nation, have accomplished great things. "You shall remember the Eternal your God, for it is he that gives you power to get wealth." It is God that has given us what we have, and it is God that has given us the ability to accomplish what we've accomplished. "It is he that gives you power to get wealth that he may establish His covenant which he swore unto your fathers as it is this day."

   "And it shall be, if you do at all forget the Eternal your God and walk after other gods and serve them and worship them, I testify against you this day that you shall surely perish. As the nations which the Eternal destroyed before your face, so shall you perish because you would not be obedient unto the voice of the Eternal your God."

   So again, God has made a promise here. I want us to go through and focus on a little bit of what God has promised. Because as we go through, we're going to see that God keeps His promises. God made a promise that he was going to give our people certain things, and God gave us those things. But God also made another promise. And the other promise was that if we take the things that he's given us and if we don't appreciate them and use them and thank and praise Him for them, God is going to take them away from us.

   And God says that he's going to deal with us. He's going to destroy us as the nations which Eternal destroyed before your face, so shall you perish. Just as those nations were driven out, were reduced down in population, were herded away, so are we going to be. You know that seems pretty far fetched. That seems pretty far out. That's hard for most people to believe and to accept.

   Now we say that we believe it, we say that we understand it in God's church, but I wonder sometimes how much the reality of it comes home to us. Because we live in our land and most of us, you know, if we can go to the pump, we can buy gasoline, well then obviously there's no shortage. The shortage begins when I can't get any, you know, that's when it's bad.

   You know the difference between a depression and a recession, don't you? A recession is when you lose your job. A depression is when I've lost mine, you know, that's kind of the way that people evaluate it. If it happens to the other fellow, well, that's too bad, but if it happens to them, oh boy, you know, that's terrible.

   God says these things are going to happen. He made certain promises, and I think that it's good to focus on some of that. God goes on and he tells us in Deuteronomy 9:5, "Not for your righteousness or the righteousness of your heart, which do you go to possess their land, but for the wickedness of the nations, the Eternal your God does drive them out from before you, and that he may perform the word which the Eternal swore unto your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."

   So God said that look, I'm doing this both as a punishment, but primarily as the keeping of a promise that I've made to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. Now God made those promises as we go back to Genesis chapter 22, let's just very quickly notice what God promised. Genesis 22:17, God told Abraham, after Abraham had shown his willingness to sacrifice Isaac, he said that "In blessing, I will bless you, and in multiplying, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand which is upon the seashore, and your seed shall possess the gate of his enemies. And in your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed because you have obeyed my voice."

   So God promised Abraham that his descendants would multiply. And that they would be blessed. And that they would possess the gates of their enemies. Now let's go on, let's notice as the promise unfolds back in Genesis chapter 35. Here God is dealing with Jacob, the grandson of Abraham. And a dream that Jacob had had, God had come to him in this dream.

   Genesis chapter 35. Well, this is after Jacob had had his dream and he'd gone on down to Haran, he had married Rachel, Leah, now he had returned to the place where he had had the dream. God had appeared here with him in verse 10 of Genesis 35 (Genesis 35:10), God said unto him, "Your name is Jacob. Your name shall not be called anymore Jacob, but Israel shall be your name," and he called his name Israel.

   And God said unto him, "I am God Almighty. Be fruitful and multiply, a nation and a company of nations shall be of you and kings shall come out of your loins. And the land which I gave Abraham and to Isaac, to you will I give it and your seed after you will I give the land."

   Now notice that the promise is here magnified. God had only told Abraham that his seed, his descendants would be multiplied. Here, God tells Israel, he said, "I'm going to bless you, you're going to multiply, and from this multiplication is going to become a nation and a company of nations and a line of kings." So God got more specific here. He began to specify, it's gonna be a great nation, a great company of nations, and a line of kings, a dynasty of kings that would come from Israel, from Jacob.

   Now let's back a little bit earlier in Genesis chapter 28, where Jacob was having the dream that God had given him when he first fled from his brother Esau. God appeared to him in Genesis 28 and he said, verse 13 (Genesis 28:13), Jacob saw this ladder, and "Behold, the Eternal stood above it and said, I am the Eternal God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac. The land whereon you lie to you will I give it to your seed, and your seed shall be as the dust of the earth. And you shall spread abroad. You shall spread abroad to the west, to the east, to the north, to the south, and in you and in your seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed."

   Now this is a very important scripture because this shows that Jacob's family and the blessings that they were to receive were not confined to the Middle Eastern area. God made a promise here that this, when you understand Genesis 28, that the nation and the company of nations would not just be right there in the Middle Eastern area, that they would spread abroad.

   You know, there's some, I read a little article put out by a fellow one time and it was so ludicrous that you would have thought that he did it as a joke, but evidently he didn't because he paid money to have the thing printed up. And his argument was that all God had promised Jacob, that the birthright promises was a little piece of land, a little plot of land about 3 feet by 6 feet. Because God told Jacob that "the land whereon you lie to you will I give it and to your seed."

   And well, that was his proof text, and he stopped right there. And he said, you know, now that's all that God gave Jacob. That's all he gave him. He didn't give him all this other stuff. He just said the land where that you're lying on. You know that's so stupid that it doesn't even deserve an answer because if you go on to the next verse, it says "your seed shall be as the dust of the earth and you shall spread abroad." You're not just gonna stay where you're lying, you know, Jacob just kind of lay there from that time on, all his descendants have piled up on top of him.

   You know, why is that stupid? But it's the kind of, and the thing is, you know, the fellow that wrote this, as far as what I understand was someone that was formerly associated with God's church and gone out and thought he had totally disproved the identity of Israel in prophecy.

   Well, says that they're going to spread out, that they're going to spread abroad. And they're going to go in every direction. They're going to go to the south, down to the areas of Australia, South Africa, New Zealand. They're going to go to the north, up in the area of course of Britain and the Northwestern Europe, to the east and the west, scattering around the world to the Americas, going on across to the Orient. Scattering abroad.

   Well, this, and it says that they would scatter abroad, be scattered in every direction or go in every direction, not be scattered in that sense, but that they would spread abroad. The Hebrew translated spread here is a word that means break forth. In other words, they were just going to burst out and just break forth. They were just going to multiply. And break forth because the land was just not going to be big enough to contain them and they were just gonna break out, break forth, and go in every direction and spread abroad.

   All right. "And in your seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed," and that shows that they're going to be in areas where they will come in contact with all of the families of the earth, not be just confined to one little isolated area of the earth. So the promise was more specific. It was told that they would break forth and go into each, every major area of the earth that a great nation and a company of nations would come from the descendants of Jacob.

   Now when you go on back to Genesis 48, you find where Jacob, Israel on his deathbed, had called for his two grandsons, the sons of Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh, to be brought in before him. And he laid his hands on the boys' heads and blessed them.

   In Genesis 48:15, he blessed Joseph and said, "God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which fed me all my life long unto this day, the angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads and let my name be named on them."

   Now who does the name Israel apply to? Primarily it applies to Ephraim and Manasseh. That's what he said. "Let my name be named on them." Now we just got through reading back in Genesis chapter 35, where God said, "Your name is Jacob, your name shall not be called anymore Jacob, but Israel shall be your name," and he called his name Israel. So God changed his name to Israel and said your name shall be called Israel, and here Israel, prior to his death, says "let my name be named on them."

   "In the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac, and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth." And when Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand upon the head of Ephraim, it displeased him. And he held up his father's hand to remove it from Ephraim's head unto Manasseh's.

   Now Manasseh was the oldest, and custom would be that the right hand would be laid on the head of the one that was oldest, he would receive the greater blessing and the left hand on the head of the younger, he would receive the lesser blessing. And of course Joseph seeing that thought, well, you know, my father doesn't see very well and he's got it mixed up and he's got his hands crossed and he's confused. I'll straighten him out.

   Well, Joseph said unto his father, "Not so, my father, for this is the firstborn. Put your right hand upon his head." And his father refused and said, "I know it, my son, I know it. He also shall become a people, and he also shall be great. But truly his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his seed shall become a multitude of nations." And he blessed them that day, saying, "And you shall Israel bless, saying God make you as Ephraim and as Manasseh," and he set Ephraim before Manasseh.

   Now he took the two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, and we saw earlier the promise was clarified to Jacob Genesis 28, that he would be the father of a great nation and a great company of nations. Now here we find out who that promise is going to come through. It's going to come through Ephraim and Manasseh because he said Manasseh is going to become a nation, a great nation, and Ephraim is going to become a company of nations. So God multiplied that out, or specified that out of the particular promises.

   Now when you get on into Genesis chapter 49, notice Genesis 49:1. Jacob called unto his sons and said, "Gather yourselves together that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the last days." Notice what he's talking about. He didn't say that I may tell you what shall befall you day after tomorrow. That I may tell you what shall befall you when you come into the land under Moses. But I may tell you what shall befall you at the time of David and Solomon. No, he said "that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the last days."

   Now the last days weren't 3000 years ago, and we're living in this period of time. We're drawing toward the close of the last days. So the prophecies that Israel gave you refer to the end time. Referred to down in our days, down in our time, didn't refer to something thousands of years ago.

   Oh that's one, that's one basic key that those who say what you're left with is the conclusion that God either kept his promise or he's a liar. God promised that there would become a great nation and a great company of nations, that it was something that would happen in the last days. That it would spread out to the north, east, south, and west. That they would be greatly blessed.

   He describes Joseph back in, well, he goes through and here in these prophecies in down in verse 22, Genesis 49 (Genesis 49:22), "Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well whose branches run over the wall." In other words, spreading out and colonizing people. You plant, you have something planted right there by a well and goes down and has that good water supply, and even when the weather is dry or different problems, boy, just spreads up and it's out and going all over the place. Well, that's the way the Joseph's descendants were going to be. Colonizing people, spreading out.

   All right. God made a promise. He made a promise that he would establish a great nation, a great company of nations. Now, you know, sometimes because of the time we focus and we seem to think, well, you know, actually we've received the greater blessing. We're number one. Now he made specific here in Genesis 48 that Ephraim was the one that received the greater blessing, Manasseh would also be a great people.

   Now what we sometimes fail to realize, we look at the period and the time that we're aware of, we've stood as number one. But what we don't look back on and realize is that Britain stood as number one for a lot longer period of time than we did. One is the number one power of the world from the time of the collapse of Napoleon. From the time of the collapse of Napoleon at the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1814, 1815, from that time on, Britain stood as the dominant power on the face of the earth, on up through the period in the aftermath of World War I, the United States began to rise up, but even then militarily, the United States had not built up and you look back, you know, during the period of the twenties.

   And we depended on Britain's fleet to kind of patrol the waters and to protect us, we'd not built up in that way. Really, it was as you were approaching World War II and as we began to build up for World War II and really gear our industry up that we achieved the same position as Britain and on beyond because Britain began to go on the way down. See in the aftermath of World War II. We should, we had basically achieved parity prior to that time, right around the time of World War II. By the time World War II was over, we were still on our upswing and Britain had already begun on their decline. They began on their decline in the aftermath of World War II.

   And our period of dominance, of world dominance, is somewhere in the neighborhood of about 30 years. Or maybe a little longer if you want to go, you can perhaps say 40 years, but if you want to figure, you know, 1940 to 1980, I don't think you can even say that we're, we don't, we still, we have lost and gone backwards to the point that we're really not standing as number one. We rank as number one in certain categories, but there are a number of categories we no longer rank in number one in. We don't even rank in number, we don't even rank as number one in per capita income in the world. We have begun to go backward. And God has began to break the pride of our power.

   But Britain achieved a power that lasted for a longer period of time and a greater dominance, we have also had a dominance. Now, a lot of times we go through this and we're aware of it, and yet we are sometimes unaware of the degree to which God intervened to give us what we have. We seem to think, well, yes, you know, God made these promises. And God said, I'll give you these blessings and I'll make this great nation, this great company of nations. Sometimes we don't realize that God is the one that gave us what we had. We did not manage it on our own.

   I want to read you a quote from a book, The History of England and the British Empire. Talking about the American war for independence. "So after the war, certain Englishmen asserted that America owed her independence to the winds." Quote, this is a quote of one of the leading Englishmen at the time. "It appeared as if the elements had joined our foes, for storms and hurricanes assisted them to destroy our navy, which by their own strength, they were unable to shake," end quote.

   "Time and time again throughout the war, came the tale of squadrons scattered and ships rendered useless while worn out masts split open and tumbled into the sea. The explanation was that since Cromwell's time, the Navy had depended on New Hampshire and Maine for its great masts. The colonists had cut off the supply at the opening of the war, and the Earl of Sandwich, who was the Lord of the Admiralty, neglected to seek substitutes elsewhere. When France entered the war, she dispatched a fleet to America. Admiral Byron, the poet's grandfather, was sent with 13 ships to head them off. A mild gale struck his squadron in mid-Atlantic. The rotten mast broke. The ships limped away in every direction and only one reached New York ahead of the French. So it went throughout the war."

   You know, the reason we won the Revolutionary War was because the time had come that God was going to allow our nation to begin to achieve its independence that he was going to establish the nation of Manasseh as separate from Ephraim. And God allowed that and God intervened.

   You know, it's interesting in terms of a battle with Christmas time being around and we've all seen the picture of Washington's crossing of the Delaware and all of this. You know, if you read the story, realized that Christmas and the production of Christmas in this nation is something that has not always had the prominence that it had. You realize Christmas Day was not even a legal holiday in some parts of the United States until well into the 1800s. It was not even a holiday in the state of Massachusetts until well into the 1800s. It wasn't recognized at all. In fact, it was illegal in colonial times to celebrate Christmas in Massachusetts. There was a period of time when Christmas was illegal in England. It was illegal to celebrate it. Unlawful.

   George Washington came in, it was on Christmas Day that a major victory was won for the Americans because the British had hired all these Hessian troops, these Germans who were celebrating Christmas and they were drunk and carrying on and Washington crossed over and hit them and caught them, you know, with their, you know, in the midst of their celebration.

   It's interesting, you know, it was a custom of the heathen and it was imported to this country and to England in the 1800s, it really the type of observance that we know today was imported in from Germany. That's really where, that's really the main inroads that it came through German settlers into this country and of course Queen Victoria of England's husband was a German, Prince Albert, and he introduced all of the German customs there to the British royal family and from them it spread out to the rest of Britain.

   But it's interesting. God intervened in the case of the weather. Just as God had sent a storm to destroy the Spanish Armada and to protect Britain from the dominance of Catholic Spain. So that Britain could break away from the Catholic Church. And could establish an independence and the power of the Catholic Church could begin to be broken. So that God could bless Ephraim and allow them to rise just as God had intervened with the weather at that time. God intervened with the weather during the period of the Revolutionary War and scattered the British Navy. So that they could not really supply their troops, that they could not intercept the French coming over. God allowed us to have that victory.

   When you look through it, what we've done at the, for instance, the Louisiana Purchase, which doubled the size of the United States, the single largest territorial acquisition the United States has ever had. It was not because we had such great foresight and great forethought that we were going to go and we were going to get this great land. Thomas Jefferson had sent an emissary over to Napoleon to negotiate the purchase of the port of New Orleans. That's all he wanted. He wanted an outlet on the Mississippi River into the Gulf so that we could move our material, our commodities from up in the what was at that time the northwest part of the United States, the areas of up around the Great Lakes, and in that area, the areas east of the Mississippi so that we could move it down the Mississippi for commercial purposes. So he wanted an outlet. He wanted to buy the little port right there at the tip of the Mississippi.

   Well, the negotiations dragged on and on. Finally, Napoleon said, "Look, I won't sell you the port of New Orleans, but I will sell you the entirety of the Louisiana Purchase. I'll sell you the entire French territory of Louisiana." And you know something, we almost didn't take it. We thought it was too much money. Congress debated on it. Jefferson gave the go ahead to go ahead and sign. Of course, the Senate had to ratify the treaty. There was great debate. There were states that threatened up in the Northeast, that threatened to secede from the Union if Louisiana were purchased. They thought that was terrible, a waste of money.

   And you go up into the heartland of the United States and the breadbasket right now up into states like Iowa and Kansas and some of that area, the rich farmland of this nation. You go up there and offer them a nickel an acre for their choice farmland, and they'll probably call somebody to come lock you up. Think you really gone off the deep end. We purchased all of that from France for less than a nickel an acre. God gave it to us. God dumped it in our laps and we were almost unwilling to take it.

   Look at Texas, where we are right now. It's not because America somehow had the forethought to go out and to try to get this and to accomplish it. You realize Texas tried to join the union for 10 years before it finally got in? I mean, you go back and study the history of Texas and the Texas Revolution. Starting off simply as a revolution, Texas was of course part of the Republic of Mexico, Santa Anna threw out the Mexican constitution, the Republican constitution, and made himself a dictator and a revolution came up and the Texans of both Anglo-Saxon and Spanish descent were in a fight against Santa Anna and against the dictatorship that he had established.

   The final result of it was Texas became independent, and became an independent entity. Texas applied to join the union to sign a treaty with the United States and to become a part of the United States, and it was turned down. Congress refused to allow Texas in the Union. They didn't want it. You know, Massachusetts, if you go back and read history, Massachusetts almost seceded from the Union. There was almost a breakup of the Union over the issue of letting Texas in.

   And of course after Texas came into the Union, Mexico went to war with the United States and we wound up and had the rest of the Southwest dumped in our laps. When you go through and you study it out and you realize that God worked these things out, that God gave us things in spite of ourselves, things that our leaders did not have the foresight to go and see or some of them did, some of them had a little more foresight but it was something that we had not carved out because of our great ability.

   Same thing as with Alaska, you know, it's called Seward's Folly back in the 1860s when William Seward, who was Secretary of State made a treaty with Russia to purchase Alaska. Seward's Folly, Seward's icebox. We didn't want it. We thought that Russia had really taken advantage of us on that.

   Well, of course you, you go down the same thing. Look at the way Britain came into their empire. Do you realize, I'll read you another quote from this book is History of England. That Halifax, Nova Scotia, which is a city there, of course, in Canada, was the only community in America founded by direct action of the British government. You realize there is only one community on the North American continent founded by direct action, the British government. Britain didn't set out to carve out an empire over here. They were, some said that Britain stumbled into their empire in a fit of absentmindedness, and that's basically what happened.

   Well, there it was. There was only one community in the entire North American continent started by direct action of the British government. When you come on down to the way in which Canada became a part of Britain, the Seven Years' War ended with the Treaty of Paris early in 1763. France withdrew completely from the mainland of North America. England received all of Canada, Cape Breton Island, the rest of Nova Scotia together with the region between the Alleghenies and the Mississippi.

   Now, the Seven Years' War was not fought over territorial possessions in the new world. It was fought over issues in Europe. And the colonial acquisitions were simply a byproduct of it, but the thing that's interesting. Is Britain wound up with North America, wound up with all of this territory in North America, with all of Canada as a result of it, but there were many who argued, this is in the British parliament, that it would be better to take the sugar island of Guadeloupe instead of Canada. "While the latter would quote color the map red in impressive fashion, its scanty trade in beaver skins would not offset the burden of defense and administration. Whereas a sugar island would mean immediate profits, even though it were only a dot on the map."

   But there was a major, there was a major debate. Britain didn't want Canada. They wanted the sugar island of Guadeloupe, which you'd have trouble finding on a map. And the reason they didn't take it. The final decision in favor of Canada was influenced by a lobby of powerful British planters of Jamaica who did not want another sugar colony enjoying imperial privileges. See, they didn't want any competition. They didn't want this other, they didn't want, you know, another sugar island coming in that could be used and would produce sugar. Britain wound up taking Canada feeling like they'd been cheated. You know, here, here all they wanted was Guadeloupe. We wound up with Canada instead.

   Wasn't their great forethought carved out the North American continent and colored it, you know, red today stands for communism. Well, the time was, you know, the old globes, the old maps, the British Empire was colored red. And when you look, you know, from that globe, one quarter of the world's surface was colored red. It was ruled by Britain. Well, they wound up with Canada in spite of themselves.

   When you go on, let's notice I’ll mention some things about Australia and New Zealand. In terms of Australia. When Britain decided to, they had a surplus of prisoners. They need to get rid of some prisoners there in England, the jails were overfilled and so they decided that there was a place, there was an island that had been discovered, island continent, actually Australia. And they used it as a penal colony. There was no intention of establishing a normal colony of settlement. So it began in the spring of 1787 with an expedition which included 750 convicts and some marine guards. So this was the beginning of the colony of Australia.

   The government simply continued to think of New South Wales simply as a dumping ground for criminals for half a century. But before the colony had been long started, a captain of the guards noticed that the land seemed suitable for sheep raising and sent back for some merino sheep whose wool commanded a high price because of its fineness. From that date, Australia's main source of livelihood began.

   In 1851, boom days suddenly came to Australia just as the keen eye of an army captain had laid one foundation of Australian prosperity by deciding that the land looked good for sheep raising. So now a prospector fresh from the mad gold rush in California decided that there might be gold in the hills of New South Wales. He was right, gold was found not only in Bathurst but also in various other parts of Australia. There were barely a quarter of a million colonists in Australia at the beginning of 1851, within a decade, an additional 1/2 million had joined them, the colony of Victoria alone jumped in 5 years from 70,000 to 333,000 inhabitants. The discovery of gold, it was said, precipitated a colony into a nation.

   And you look at the way that God is that God has done that. If God had simply told the people, told our people, said, "Look, I'm going to bless you and I want you to overspread and take over this whole continent. I want you to spread out and take over all of Australia. I want you here on the east coast of the United States. I want you to spread across all the way to the Pacific and up in Canada, I want you to do the same thing. I want you to spread out from one end of the continent to the other. Down in South Africa, I want you to spread out and take over not just the little port on the tip, but take over the whole southern part there of Africa, the area of South Africa."

   Well, they would say, "Oh, you know, God, you're trying to kill us. Why, there are Indians out there and there's desert, or there are aborigines there, there's all kinds of problems. There's snakes and we'll probably get killed. No way. Boy, we're scared. Go out there and you go across that desert and we'll get killed and the Indians ambush us."

   God didn't tell us to overspread it. He just dangled gold at the other end. And we like to broke our necks getting from one end of the continent to the other. Forgot all about the Indians and the aborigines and the natives and the this and the that, we just, you know, overspread there it was. God waited until we had acquired the area of the American West and Southwest. Then gold was discovered in 1849 and immediately we overspread. The gold rush was on and in 1851, the same thing with Australia. Of course, Canada had their own gold rush that overspread and brought them to the west. So you had God's way of getting our areas colonized.

   Now, going on, I want to read a little more. "The home government long resisted efforts to bring New Zealand under the British flag. Originally the islands had been placed under the jurisdiction of the Governor of New South Wales, but later England tried to free herself from even that slight implication of governmental responsibility. So New Zealand went its lawless way until the actual planting of regular English settlers necessitated more definite control. You know, still the colonial office refused to sanction the enterprise and a company, a private company wound up doing business in Britain finally had to go in to supervise the thing and to get and to get a handle on it, to get control on it."

   Well, you could go on, I want to read one other thing concerning the Suez Canal, one of the great gates that God gave our people. Britain did not start out to build the Suez Canal. Any more than the United States started out to build the Panama Canal. You know who started out to build both of them? France did. It's interesting, by the way, France, of course, the descendants of Reuben, who was the firstborn who forfeited his inheritance because of certain problems that he got into, forfeited the birthright, had it taken away from him.

   It's interesting to note that France has been everywhere before Britain and the United States have been and what they have tried to carve out for themselves fell through their hands. Think about that, just realize that they were in North America first, they had that, they had Louisiana first. They were in Australia first. They were in India first. They tried to build the Suez Canal, and they tried to build the Panama Canal. They have been everywhere first trying to carve out an empire for themselves. And their empire fell through their fingers. Right into the lap of the United States and Britain who weren't trying to carve out an empire for themselves, who were simply stumbling along and God was giving it to them. Because he made a promise to Abraham.

   The first step talked about the purchase here in, when the Suez Canal was built, the shares, about half the shares belonged to the ruler of Egypt, the Khedive Ismail, who was a vassal of the Sultan of Turkey. His predecessor had received the shares in return for a grant of a franchise to a French company which completed the canal in 1869 under the supervision of a French engineer and for providing enforced Egyptian labor in its construction. Ismail was now bankrupt and the French bankers were not eager to advance more money to the spendthrift monarch. Disraeli, who was the British Prime Minister, saw his chance. Without consulting Parliament, he asked the great Jewish banking house of Rothschild for nearly 4 million pounds with which to purchase Ismail's canal shares. When questioned as to the security, he replied, "the British government." Disraeli received the money, bought the shares, informed the queen that they belonged to the British crown, and then sought parliamentary sanction for what he had done.

   Of course, this led into British occupation of the Nile Valley and ultimate British control over the entire, over the entirety of the Suez Canal Britain. Anyway, they wound up with control over this. And so you look, and we come on up to World War II, which was a very crucial time, and it was British control of the gates of her enemies. British and American control of the gates of our enemies, of course, Britain possessed more of those than the United States did, but we certainly possessed portions of them, possessed the Suez Canal, which was crucial. It was a very crucial thing there in World War II, and of course, the fact that Britain controlled the Middle Eastern oil field.

   This was a major issue at that time, of course, those of you who read about it or who remember at the time, Rommel's march across North Africa heading for Jerusalem, the Middle East, wanting to take the Suez Canal, wanting to cut off Britain and their empire in the east from the Mediterranean.

   Well it was because of the blessings that God had given us and the prosperity that he had given us, the things that God had promised, that God gave us in spite of ourselves. That God gave us because he promised it to Abraham. And so as the time came, God had said back in Leviticus 26, that if you don't appreciate, if you sin against me, I will punish you for seven times.

   Now, when you go through the Bible, you find that the term time, times, and half a time is used to be equivalent to 1260 days or 42 months. The terms are equivalent 3 1/2 years, time, times and a half a time, 1260 days, 42 months, all these terms are equivalent. Now seven times is twice that many, isn't it? You know, 2 times 3 1/2 gives you 7. So 1260 days was time, times and a half a time, 2520 days would be seven times.

   When God said in Leviticus 26, "I will punish you for seven times." We find, of course, that that's exactly what happened, 2520 days prophetically. Which according to Numbers, a day is a year in prophecy and prophetic fulfillment. 2520 years from the time that Israel of old went into captivity, 721 to 718 BC, 2520 years later brings you to 1800 to 1803. In 1800, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was proclaimed. In 1803, the Louisiana Purchase was acquired. And the United States and Britain began their ascent to greatness.

   Well, the thing that we need to understand is the fact that we achieved and acquired what we have because God gave it to us. But God tells us what's, God made some other promises right along with some of this back in Deuteronomy 28. God says in verse 14 (Deuteronomy 28:14), "You shall not go aside from any of the words which I command you this day, to the right hand or to the left to go after other gods or serve them, but it shall come to pass if you will not hearken unto the voice of the Eternal your God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes, which I command you this day, that all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you. Cursed shall you be in the city, cursed shall you be in the field, cursed shall be your basket and your store."

   He goes on, and he talks about the curses that are going to come. Just as faithfully as God promised blessings, God also promised cursing. Well, he goes on and he describes what God is going to do, the diseases that are going to come. The fact of verse 37 (Deuteronomy 28:37), "You shall become an astonishment, a proverb and a byword among all the nations." Has God made us a byword among all the nations, and we come to that point. Well, just go look, you know, what's going on in some of these foreign nations. The United States, the term America is virtually an epithet to many of these nations, certainly many there in the Middle East.

   God goes on and he talks about verse 43 (Deuteronomy 28:43), "The stranger that is within you shall get up above you very high, and you shall come down very low. He shall lend to you and you shall not lend to him. He shall be the head and you shall be the tail. Moreover, all these curses shall come upon you and shall pursue you and overtake you till you be destroyed because you hearken not unto the voice of the Eternal your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which he commanded you. And they shall be upon you for a sign and a wonder and upon your seed forever because you serve not the Eternal your God with joyfulness and with gladness of heart for the abundance of all things. Therefore, shall you serve your enemies, which the Eternal shall send against you in hunger and thirst and nakedness, and in want of all things, and he shall put a yoke of iron on your neck until he has destroyed you."

   So, God says, "Look, I blessed you and I fostered you and I poured out things on you. You could have served me and you could have obeyed my voice, and you could have done so in the midst of prosperity and plenty. You could have done so in the midst of the good times, but you chose not to do that. And as a result, you're going to learn. You want, you didn't want to serve anybody, you wanted to do your own thing. Well, you're going to learn to serve, you're going to learn to be under authority, but the authority you're going to be under is not going to be my authority. It's going to be the authority of a nation I'm going to bring against you and you, you think my law is a yoke?"

   You know, America is filled with preachers to tell you all, you know, the law of God, that's a yoke. That's a yoke of bondage. They're gonna find out what a yoke of bondage is gonna be, brethren. You know this nation is going to find out what a yoke of bondage is. God says they're going to have a yoke of iron on their necks. And if they don't want to serve God in abundance, they're going to serve foreign masters in hunger and nakedness, and deprivation and want, they're gonna find out what a yoke is.

   We're told back in Ezekiel chapter 2. A message really primarily for us, does this work? God said in Ezekiel 2:3, "Son of man, I send you to the children of Israel to a rebellious nation that has rebelled against me. They and their fathers have transgressed against me even unto this very day. They are impudent children who are stiff-hearted. I do send you unto them, and you shall say unto them, thus says the Lord Eternal."

   Now, Ezekiel didn't go to the house of Israel. The house of Israel had been taken into captivity over 120 years or 130 years before Ezekiel wrote. They were captives. They all, they'd been settled in the cities of the Medes up by above the river Habor up between the Black and the Caspian Sea. In that area, now going on up even into the area known today as the Crimea.

   And of course, as they migrated into Europe at a later period of time, they were known as if you read European history, you'll find that the Celtic peoples, the ones coming there in Europe were known as Cimmerians, C-I-M-M-E-R-I-A-N-S, Cimmerians because they came from the area of the Crimea. Well, that is the area if you check a Bible map, a Bible atlas, that was the area of the cities of the Medes. That's where God had placed.

   And just as God had prophesied, God told Ezekiel in Ezekiel chapter 4, that Israel would bear their iniquity for 390 days, each day for a year. Now, from 721, the original fall of Israel, 390 years later brought you down to 331 BC. And it was 331 BC when Alexander the Great conquered Persia and freed the house of Israel, thus allowing them to migrate into Europe.

   You know, it's interesting. God said they were actually in this period of captivity is 390 years there from the time that Israel fell, went into captivity. They were settled in the cities of the Medes until Alexander the Great smashed the Persian Empire in 331 and the slaves of the Medes and the Persians were freed and of course that is the time that the Celtic peoples began moving on into Europe.

   When you read European history, it talks about the great influx of the great invasions or the migrations of the Celtic peoples beginning around 300 BC. That is the period when those people began to come into Europe and they came from the area of the Crimea. And through that area and they crossed the Black Sea and came into Europe. That's when the Gauls migrated into France and these people began to pour into Europe and they came in successive waves. You know, when you go through and you put history together and it's exactly what God said it would be.

   Well, Ezekiel didn't take a message to the house of Israel. Ezekiel wrote a message, but the house of Israel was way up in the cities of the Medes. Ezekiel was down in Babylon and he was a slave, a Jewish slave to the Babylonian Empire, completely different nation. And God was sending here a prophecy of a future captivity. And you go up to a bunch of captives, the people who are still in captivity at the time Ezekiel was writing, and said, "You're gonna go into captivity if you don't obey God," you know, it's like going to a guy in jail and so "we're gonna put you in jail if you don't shape up." Well, that's crazy. It doesn't make sense.

   God, the message Ezekiel wrote made sense because it wasn't for that time, it's for our time. God says in Ezekiel 2:5, "They, whether they will hear or whether they will forbear, for they are a rebellious house, yet shall know that there has been a prophet among them."

   And he goes on down in Ezekiel chapter 3, verse 17 (Ezekiel 3:17), "Son of man, I have made you a watchman unto the house of Israel. Therefore, hear the word at my mouth and give them warning from me. When I say unto the wicked, you shall surely die, and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way to save his life, the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at your hand. Yet if you warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity, but you have delivered your soul." You've done what has been required of you.

   Of course, brethren, we need to understand this. We need to understand that God has given us this message. God has given us a message to take to our people Israel. And if we allow ourselves to be bogged down in all kinds of little petty things, and we get bogged down in our own personal problems and we get bogged down here and there. And there are those in the work that have allowed themselves to get bogged down and they wanted to get into, they were conscious of status and position and power and politics and whatever. They don't want to bog down and bog down.

   God says, "Look, I have given you a job to do, and when all is said and done, I'm gonna hold you accountable for what you've done with the job I've given you, and if we allow our attention to be diverted from the job God has set before us, to cry aloud to spare not, to warn this nation, to warn the world of what God has going to do." Then God is going to hold us accountable. He says, "If this nation dies, if this nation perishes because they never heard. You're going to be held accountable for it."

   Well, I think it's something we really need to be conscious of. In realizing the fact of what God is doing. Realizing our part in it. You know, God is, God could have chosen to do his work a variety of ways. God has chosen to work through human beings. You know Christ said, "I could raise up stones. I could raise up stones to be children to Abraham." You know, instead of raising up stones, God has chosen to do it the hard way. He's used clods instead.

   You know, we didn't, that's where Adam came from, you know, he was a clod. He was dirt, red mud, and God made a man. God has chosen to do it the hard way. He's using us. But that gives us a tremendous opportunity. It gives us a tremendous responsibility, something we need to be conscious of.

   God goes through, he prophesied of the things that are going to happen in Ezekiel 7. He talks about the captivity, the fact that it's going to come in Ezekiel 7:14-25, "They've blown the trumpet even to make all ready, but none goes forth to battle, for my wrath is upon all the multitudes thereof. The sword is without, the pestilence and the famine is within. He that is in the field shall die with the sword. He that's in the city, famine and pestilence shall devour him."

   You know, there are those that think, well, the way to escape all the plagues and all the problems is to go out to the country and get yourself a place and raise your own food. Well, that's fine. God said, "You're in the field, you'll die with a sword." Somebody will kill you. You might not be close to people, so maybe the pestilence doesn't get you. You might have enough food out there for you to do it, you know, in the city, the famine and the pestilence will devour you. If you're out in the country, somebody will come out and shoot you for what you have. So you can take your choice.

   You want to stock up on gold, you know, that's your inflation hedge, verse 19. "They shall cast their silver in the streets and their gold shall be removed. Their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Eternal. They shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels, because it is the stumbling block of their iniquity."

   It's the stumbling block of their iniquity as a nation we worship the god of materialism. That's the stumbling block of our sins to begin with. God blessed us and we got our eyes set on the material things and on the blessings and all how great we are, and all the things that we've got, and we just seek to acquire more and more and more and not really give God the praise and the glory and the credit for what we've been given to begin with.

   I realized, you know, there are things in terms of functioning in today's economy, obviously, you know, we use money and if you have a few silver coins or even some gold coins or something, that's fine. But if you think that you're somehow going to stock up on food and on gold and you're going to survive the coming crash. Well, you've got another think coming because God tells what's gonna happen when the real crash comes.

   You know, to function in today's society and as long as society remains intact, that's fine, that's one thing. But to think that somehow you're going to by physical means preserve yourself in the time of wrath that is ahead. You're kidding yourself. Won't work. God says it won't work. Time's gonna come when the people that have their hoards of gold and silver are gonna cast it into the streets because it won't buy them anything. Because there won't be anything to buy.

   You know, gold is fine as long as you've got something you can trade it for. But when there isn't any food, and all the gold in the world is not going to create food out of thin air. And you can't eat the gold.

   Well, God says, going on in verse 22, let's pick it up in verse 21, "And I will give it into the hands of the strangers for a prey, and to the wicked of the earth for a spoil, and they shall pollute it. My face will I turn also from them, and they shall pollute my secret place, for the robbers shall enter into it and defile it. Make a chain, for the land is full of bloody crimes, the city is full of violence. Wherefore, I will bring the worst of the heathen and they shall possess their houses. I will also make the pomp of the strong to cease, and their holy places shall be defiled, destruction comes, and they shall seek peace and there shall be none."

   God says, you know, the land is filled with bloody crimes, just violence and murder. Intrigue! Just one thing linked to another, cause and effect, on and on it goes. Talks about that our wealth is being dissipated. It's given into the hands of strangers and of course, while we possessed three quarters of the gold on the face of the earth, a matter of 30 years ago, we don't possess that now. We're very quickly losing what we have. Giving it away.

   You know, it's interesting, of course the Arabs are the ones that have actually been buying up a lot of the gold and gradually getting that. It's interesting if you look what they've done, what it amounts to, they've taken one mineral of scarce quantity of limited amount, one scarce mineral, precious mineral, oil, and in effect, they traded it for another mineral of scarce, scarce mineral, a precious mineral, mineral of limited quantity of which no more is being manufactured, that is gold.

   Now, when the trade is complete, they have the gold, and we have the oil, we will have used the oil and they'll still have the gold, you know, we'll be ready to go again. They'll still have something that everybody wants.

   It's interesting if you want a comparison to go back to the book of I Kings. I Kings chapter 10. Now, Solomon, the reign of Solomon, was a little bit of a foretype of the blessings that God ultimately poured out in the end time on Ephraim and Manasseh. But the reign of Solomon was when Israel reached their height and the greatest percentage of the birthright blessings that they received at that time. But it was because of the sins of Solomon, the kingdom was split and it began to go downhill. And finally sins got worse and worse, God took them into captivity and the whole giving of the birthright was postponed for 2520 years.

   But notice what Solomon had. I Kings 10:14. "Now the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was 666 talents of gold." Now, the note here, the marginal note states that this was about 20 million dollars of gold, but that you remember was a note that was made back when gold was $35 an ounce. You multiply it over 10 times now. In other words, this is talking about over 200 million dollars worth of gold every year. That came into Solomon. That was how much gold he was receiving on a yearly basis. Over 200 million dollars worth in today's value terms.

   Well it didn't take Solomon long to amass quite a fortune. But it's interesting in terms of what that fortune accomplished for him. Back in I Kings 14:25. "It came to pass in the fifth year of King Rehoboam," who was Solomon's son, "that Shishak, king of Egypt, came up against Jerusalem, and he took away the treasures of the house of the Lord and the treasures of the king's house. He even took away all, he took away all the shields of gold which Solomon had made, and King Rehoboam made in their stead brazen shields."

   You had to debase the currency, so to speak, had to move down to brass because they didn't have any gold anymore. You looked at one of our quarters lately? No, we've kind of gone downhill too, haven't we?

   You know God gave Solomon that gold. Solomon didn't really appreciate where it came from. He got into problems, began multiplying to himself foreign wives and got involved in some of their idolatry, and the whole nation went downhill when his son came in, his son got into some same problems Solomon had and within a matter of years, everything that God had given Solomon, God just allowed it to be dissipated, it was gone. Solomon came in, it went out. One fell swoop. Egypt came in and took it.

   Well, it's interesting. You know, it's interesting when you look at some of these parallels and you realize what has happened and what is happening. And the promises that God makes, because God has kept His promises. That's really what it comes down to that God has kept his promises.

   And when we look at history and we see that God made a promise to Abraham. God made a promise to Isaac and Jacob. God has kept those promises. God has poured out on our people, the choicest bounty of heaven. But God told us what he would do if we didn't appreciate it, we didn't use it. We as a nation have cut ourselves off from the fabulous blessings that God gave. We've not really appreciated what God gave us and what God made. We've sown the wind. And we're reaping the whirlwind.

   Now brethren, you can bank on the promises of God, that's reality. You look around at what we see on the surface, and that is illusion. That just is what appearance says. But reality is based on the promises of God because they will come to pass.

   We stand at a very crucial time, a very crucial time in the history of our nation, a very crucial time in the history of this world. And frankly, a very crucial time in the history of God's church because God is cleansing and purging his church. And there are those that have chosen to go and to cast in their lot with this world, this society. If you want to do that, there it is, go to it. But God has made you a promise, a promise of what's going to transpire, a promise of what's going to come to pass, and God's promises stand sure.