In this upcoming week an event of great significance will take place in America.

Donald Trump has termed it, “The most important election in the history of America” and recently added, “It is the most important election in the history of Israel.”

There is no doubt about it: American society is about as polarised as it gets. The woke left has run rampant during the reigns of Obama and Biden. The leftist agenda has been pushed forward, supported by politicians, the media and Universities. The “right” side was asleep at the switch for a while until Trump showed up and turned mainstream politics on its head.

God used Trump and his former administration, including Jared Kushner, to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and put into place the Abraham Accords, the most radical shift in world politics, breaking from the “accepted” narrative and bringing huge dividends to the nations that participated.

Both Trump and Netanyahu were forced out of office during the year following the Accords.

The momentum they had begun continued under Biden. Iran engaged its proxies, starting with Hamas, then Hezbollah and the Houthis, to scuttle the warming of relationships between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

The Biden Administration did not know what to do with the Hamas attack on Israel, vacillating between initial support and then pressure to make peace and the withholding of weapons for Israel to defend itself.

What will happen next week?  We do not know the outcome, no different than the outcome of the election that brought Trump to power in the first place. All the media predicted his abysmal defeat, and yet the Angels had another plan in place.

As Bible believers, there is an over-arching principle that we must recognise:

“…the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the basest of men.” (Daniel 4:17)

It is God and the Angels that are in control of who assumes the mantle of power in America. We cannot know the direction God wants the world to go in, in the short term. We do know the end results that the prophets outline:

• Peace in Israel prior to the Russian invasion, as was discussed last week
• A Resurgent Russia in control of Europe
• A weakened America unable to stop the events of Ezekiel 38

How these are achieved, and in what order, we do not necessarily know. What we do know is that we, as believers, have no place in politics. Christ was very clear when he answered Pilot at his mock trial:

“My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.” (John 18:36)

We reject the notion that “kingdom of God” is the church. The Lord instructed his disciples to pray for the coming kingdom:

“Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:10)

But this kingdom is “in earth” with Christ reigning from Jerusalem. It is not “in heaven”. This was what the angel Gabriel instructed Mary:

“He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.” (Luke 1:32–33)

Hence, the Angel’s statement to the apostles:

“Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:11)

This was followed by Peter’s testimony:

“Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; And he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.” (Acts 3:19–21)

When the restoration of all things spoken by the mouth of the prophets is completed, Jesus will return and assume the throne of David, ruling from Jerusalem and bringing “peace on earth”.

In the mean time, we have no place in fighting either physically or politically in this world. John Thomas summed the situation up well writing in Eureka:

To the saints this aerial expanse is closed. At present they do not shine there as the sun, moon, constellations, and stars of the firmament… Although the saints are promised “power over the nations to rule them”, “the heaven,” in which national government is located is shut and fast closed against them.

A saint, who is one in deed as well as name, cannot condescend to subject himself to the conditions necessary to obtain the favour of the political mob, whether that mob be a mob of aristocrats, or a mob of what these call “the swinish multitude” he cannot, I say, condescend, as a son of the Deity, a brother of Jesus Christ, and a king and priest elect for God, to seek the favor of “the dead in trespasses and sins” whose votes and patronage are indispensable to his exaltation to the heaven; in which he may figure by the eloquence of his speech, or the gaudy decorations of a court, as a star of the first or an inferior magnitude.

The time will come when the door to the pollical heavens is opened, and the believers are invited to take their place running the world in righteousness, as John saw in his vision:

“After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter.” (Revelation 4:1)

However, this is not their place now. Peter looked for it in the future:

“Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.” (2 Peter 3:13)

What the angels are about to do, we watch from the sidelines, Bible in hand, with great interest, without intervention by vote or voice. It is not our place to question God, and we leave the politicians to strive with each other:

“Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? Or thy work, He hath no hands?” (Isaiah 45:9)

While we do not become politically, socially, or environmentally active, we can be prayerfully active, as Christ prayed:

“I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.” (John 17:15)

This world is becoming increasingly evil, and the only real remedy is the return of the Lord Jesus Christ.

It may well be that the return of Trump to the Whitehouse may be necessary to bring peace in the Middle East. It may have been that Trump’s exit was required to force Israel to deal with Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, though they have been unwilling to do so for years. Trump made the statement at the Republican National Convention:

“I will end every single international crisis that the current administration has created, including the horrible war with Russia and Ukraine — which would have never happened if I was president — and the war caused by the attack on Israel, which would have never happened if I was president.”

It may be that is why he was not president for a while. The terrible events in Israel have forced it to stop listening to the opinions of nations around the world and focus on what is good for God’s people in the land. Netanyahu stated,

“We are changing the security reality in our region; for the sake of our children, for the sake of our future, to ensure that what happened on the 7th of October will not happen again. Never again.”

It may well be that the war with Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran is the only way to bring peace to the region. Perhaps Trump’s return to a totally reshaped Middle East will be what the Angels have prepared. Perhaps he is not to return, as there are other things that need to take place without the strong hand of America intervening. What we do know is that there must be a real peace in the Middle East before Christ’s return, for “they shall dwell safely all of them” (Ezekiel 38:8). The extent of this safety was brought out last week:

“And thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates, To take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon the people that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land.” (Ezekiel 38:11–12)

This state must be achieved, and it may well be a furtherance of the Abraham Accords that will bring this about.

We also know that Russia must be triumphant, and Europe must be chained. The Kiev Independent stated:

Trump has claimed he would end Russia's war within "24 hours" without elaborating on how he plans to achieve it. Some reports and statements from Trump's inner circle indicate this might entail pressuring Ukraine to cede territory or give up on its NATO aspirations.

The Bible tells us that not only Ukraine but Europe will fall under the control of Russia when the final conflict comes about. The instructions to Gog of the Land of Magog, the Prince of Rosh, Meshech and Tubal are given:

“Be thou prepared, and prepare for thyself, thou, and all thy company that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them.” (Ezekiel 38:7)

The guarding of Europe, and the associated nations including France, Germany, Italy, Greece, Ukraine and the rest is a foregone conclusion. How we get from the situation we see today to that future biblically outlined state remains to be seen. It may be that a Kamila-style White House would be the right recipe for such a disaster.

Trump has run on a “Make America Great Again” campaign. Is that the purpose of the Father? Is America and the things it stands for in line with the things of the Father?  Increasingly, it is going in a direction wholly opposed to God and his principles as taught in the Bible.

America’s destiny is one of weakness. It has abandoned God and driven the Bible out of schools and all national institutions. The words of Hosea have been quoted by many leaders in America mourning the state of affairs:

“For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind….” (Hosea 8:7)

What made America great in the first place was the biblical principles threaded into the fabric of its society. As these threads are pulled out, the national fabric falls apart. Reminiscent of Israel’s demise, America has turned its back on God and, consequently, cannot state “in God we trust” or request “God bless America.” Israel was warned:

“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: Because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: Seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.” (Hosea 4:6)

If America blesses Israel under Trump, it may find itself a recipient of the blessings promised. If it curses Israel under Kamila, it may find itself a recipient of the cursing also promised in the same verse:

“And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” (Genesis 12:3)

It may be that Trump does win the election. He has had much Catholic support behind him, with prominent and vocal Catholics like Robert Kenedy, Mel Gibson throwing their support behind him. The New Humanist, in a June 2024 article, recounted,

On a 2020 phone call with Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, who gushed his support, Trump called himself the “best [president] in the history of the Catholic Church”.

This was in reference to his appointment of judges who were anti-abortion. Three of the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe vs Wade were appointed by Trump, bringing the total of judges raised Catholic to seven out of nine.

If Trump, successful in election, were to be assassinated, it would make J. D Vance the third Catholic president of the United States. Once in power, who knows how Vance would turn his policies?

Eventually, America will be diminished, and Israel will rise to greatness under the leadership of the Lord Jesus Christ. America, along with all nations, will be called upon to submit to his righteous rule. We believe the Bible indicates there will be some shred of Biblical fabric left that will cause the nation to bow the knee:

“The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents: The kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts. Yea, all kings shall fall down before him: All nations shall serve him.” (Psalm 72:10–11)

One thing is for sure:

“And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent: Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.” (Acts 17:30–31)

We pray that day will be soon.

For the Bible in the News, this has been Jonathan Bowen joining you.