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Where Do We Stand? Series
Part 1
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“…One Nation under God…”
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The Statue of Liberty – File / Archive
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“O beautiful for spacious skies,” is the opening line to the song, “America the Beautiful” and it gives the impression that the country living under these skies is more than anyone could ask for. Is this a realistic view of the United States, which the song implies, or are the dark clouds of disillusionment obscuring the dream of a land once considered great? Are we still one nation under God or are we a nation oblivious to the brick wall we are smashing into?
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Proverbs 16:17-19 NKJV — The highway of the upright is to depart from evil;
He who keeps his way preserves his soul. Pride goes before destruction,
And a haughty spirit before a fall. Better to be of a humble spirit with the lowly,
Than to divide the spoil with the proud.
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Since the conclusion of World War II the United States has carried the title of “Leader of the Free World” and being one of the, if not the biggest, architects of the modern world. Holding on to the title of being the most desired country to live in hasn’t been an easy road. A history of revolution, civil war, racial and gender inequality has brought a nation to tremendous wealth and prosperity but it also had an underlying tone of disillusionment. For 75 years the world has watched the United States rise to greatness only to fail in trying to make it a safer place. Eyes are turning to another world power wanting to take the reigns as the dominant leader of the world.
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St. Louis, Missouri – USA
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How can a nation who claims to be “one nation under God” fall from grace? Recent events have given us an opportunity to witness a potential collapse of a world system that many historians and biblical scholars have predicted.
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Courtesy of Foreign Affairs Magazine
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In an article, written by Harvard historian Niall Ferguson, featured in the 2010 March/April edition of Foreign Affairs Magazine. Niall Ferguson presented an analysis of how empires can quickly collapse into chaos. Rather than a slow decline over centuries, Ferguson showed that many large nations of the past were gone in a few short years. They were seemingly strong and viable and faded virtually overnight.
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He stated that “Conventional wisdom presents the economic challenges to America’s global dominance as long-term threats. Demographics alone will increase the debt to unmanageable proportions.
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Citing long-term predictions of China overtaking America in economic size and output by 2027 or 2040, Ferguson asked, “What if history is not cyclical and slow moving but arrhythmic—at times almost stationary, but also capable of accelerating suddenly, like a sports car? What if collapse does not arrive over a number of centuries but comes suddenly, like a thief in the night?” – Interesting that he would use a reference from 1 Thessalonians 5, that says,
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1 Thessalonians 5:1-3 NKJV — But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you. For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. For when they say, “Peace and safety!” then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape.
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What the Bible says about the end-time events culminating in the Day of the Lord applies to the sudden collapse of powerful nations and empires throughout history. One example is the collapse of the Soviet Union over a short period of five years, from the time Mikhail Gorbachev became general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party.
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Moscow, Russia
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Although the leaders of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) and the CIA (Center Intelligence Agency) overestimated the size of the Soviet economy, they did have a nuclear capability that rivaled the United States. It looked as if the Soviet Union would be around to challenge America for many years to come. Yet, less than five years after Gorbachev took power, the Soviet imperium in central and Eastern Europe had fallen apart, followed by the Soviet Union itself in 1991. After only 74 years of existence, the Soviet Union was no more. If ever an empire fell off a cliff, rather than gently declining, it was the one founded by.Vladimir Lenin in 1917.
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London, England
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Nations and empires are large, complex systems that can be turned upside down in short order by the insertion of even one event that is more than the system can handle. The COVID-19 pandemic is a clear example of this happening. The problem with the Coronavirus is that it is something world leaders can’t put in the past. The possibility of another spike of the outbreak is a certainty considering there has never been a vaccine created to cure pathogens in the past, only vaccines to help treat the systems of the virus. There is an answer and a solution but is the world willing to accept that solution?
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2 Chronicles 7:14 NKJV — “if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
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The longer “we” being the world, including the United States, ignore God’s Holy Word and guidance, we run the risk of falling into ruin like so many kingdoms have done throughout history. If these are truly the latter days that Jesus and the biblical prophets spoke about then we are running out of time and soon things could change for the worse. We must realize that other smaller, seemingly insignificant events can trigger a chain reaction leading to world upheaval.
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San Francisco, California – USA
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“From sea to shining sea” citizens of the United States as well as their leaders live under the impression that no matter what challenges they face, they have the knowledge and education to overcome any crisis. Believing works and action are the keys for prosperity and strength. Invincibility is the sum of their ingenuity not realizing that God is the only one who determines the length of their rule of power.
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Paris, France
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Is the world ready for another interruption of their global economic system they so deeply depend on? Is a major collapse on the horizon? In part 2 of our “Where Do We Stand?” series we will examine the concerns that historians and religious leaders have about the status of the global stance with God.
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Revelation 13:1 NKJV — Then I stood on the sand of the sea. And I saw a beast rising up out of the sea…
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