CHAPTER FOUR

THE THIRD LENS

It would be a serious mistake to look at events and trends in the United States merely through the lenses of economics and politics. It might seem normal, even tempting, to do so. But to truly understand the significance of global events and trends, we must not limit ourselves to a conventional worldview. We must also analyze events through what I call the “third lens”—the lens of Scripture. Only when we have a biblical worldview can the full picture become clearer. Only then can we begin to see in three dimensions.

I first wrote about the importance of taking this approach in my 2006 book, Epicenter, with regards to understanding the future of Israel and the Middle East from a biblical perspective. But looking through the third lens is an equally valid and important approach in understanding the future of other nations, including the United States. For while it is interesting to read what the pessimists and the optimists say about the future of any country, what matters most is what God says in his holy Word.

The third lens is essential in addressing whether the Bible describes the future of America and what clues it can provide as to whether we will survive the severe threats facing us today. More precisely, does the Bible actually answer the question so many people are asking: “What happens to America in the last days?”

Truly and effectively answering that question requires a step-by-step process of addressing several other matters first:

• Does the Bible really claim to know and describe the future?

• On what basis can we trust the prophecies found in the Bible?

• What does the Bible say will happen in the last days?

• Are we living in the last days?

• Is America mentioned specifically in Bible prophecy?

Let us, therefore, consider these five critical questions one by one. The rest of this chapter will address the first two; we will look at the following three in subsequent chapters.

Does the Bible Really Claim to Know and Describe the Future?

Make no mistake: the Bible is not shy about describing itself as a supernatural book. Yes, it was written down on tablets and parchments and scrolls of various kinds across the span of several thousand years by a wide variety of mere men, including Jewish shepherds, kings, warriors, fishermen, and rabbis, as well as a Gentile medical doctor. But though the Scriptures were written down by men, they were not written by men. To the contrary, the Bible states clearly and unequivocally that it is the inspired Word of God himself.

In the first chapter of the first book of the Bible, for example, we read again and again, “Then God said . . .” (Genesis 1:3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 20, 24, 26, 29).

In the second book of the Bible, we learn that Moses didn’t write the Ten Commandments. Rather, Moses wrote down the words of the Lord, as the Lord commanded. The Bible tells us, “Then God spoke all these words. . . .” (Exodus 20:1).

As we work our way through the Hebrew Scriptures, we continue to read verses like: “the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, saying . . .” (Genesis 15:1); “the word of the LORD came to Samuel, saying . . .” (1 Samuel 15:10); “the word of the LORD came to Elijah in the third year, saying . . .” (1 Kings 18:1); “the word of the LORD came to me [Jeremiah] saying . . .” (Jeremiah 1:4); “the word of the LORD came expressly to Ezekiel . . .” (Ezekiel 1:3); and so forth.

The longest chapter of the Bible—Psalm 119—is about how powerful and helpful and wise and life-changing the Scriptures are because they are the very words of the living God. “Your commandments make me wiser than my enemies, for they are ever mine,” the psalmist wrote. “I have more insight than all my teachers, for Your testimonies are my meditation. . . . Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Psalm 119:98-99, 105).

When we get to the New Testament, we continue to learn that the words of the Scriptures are the very words of God. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” the apostle John wrote of the Lord Jesus Christ. “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:1, 14).

The apostle Paul put it as clearly as anyone could in his second letter to his young disciple Timothy: “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16).

What’s more, the Bible states that the prophecies contained within it were inspired by the all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful God, who chooses to give his people advance warning of the future events he deems of utmost importance.

Through the Hebrew prophet Isaiah, the Lord said, “I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come” (Isaiah 46:9-10, NIV).

Through the prophet Amos, the Lord said, “The Lord GOD does nothing unless He reveals His secret counsel to His servants the prophets” (Amos 3:7).

Through the prophet Jeremiah, the Lord told his people, “Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know” (Jeremiah 33:3).

Referring to the Holy Spirit, the Lord Jesus told his disciples, “When He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come” (John 16:13).

Bible prophecies are, if you will, intercepts from the mind of God. They tell us God’s secrets. They tell us “great and mighty things” we do not know about the future. They tell us “what is to come.” Often, biblical prophecies are “storm warnings” for the future, warnings of wars or natural disasters or other catastrophic events that God has decided he is going to allow to happen or cause to happen. Yet in his love and mercy, he wants us to be aware of—and thereby fully prepared for—these events before they come to pass.

On What Basis Can We Trust the Prophecies Found in the Bible?

Couldn’t any book claim to be written by God? Yes.

Haven’t other books in history claimed to predict the future? Yes.

On what basis, then, can we trust the prophecies found in the Bible about the last days in general and about the future of specific countries in particular? This is an important question, and the answer is simple: we can trust the Bible’s prophecies about the future because the Bible’s prophecies about the past have all come true.

Think about it for a moment. The prophets in the Bible told mankind about hundreds of specific events that would happen—and made those predictions before they happened. And then those events actually happened just as they were foretold. That fact provides proof that these men in the Bible truly spoke from God. After all, only God knows “the end from the beginning.” Therefore, only God could give his servants advance knowledge of the things to come, not just in a few instances, but in hundreds and hundreds of specific cases, and with 100 percent accuracy. Indeed, fulfilled prophecy is one of the distinctive elements that give us confidence that the Bible is the very Word of God, not the scribblings of mere mortals.

The Prophecies about the Captivity of Jerusalem Came True

The Hebrew prophet Jeremiah once prophesied that God was going to enact judgment on an unrepentant nation of Israel by sending the Babylonians to conquer the Holy Land and take her inhabitants captive. “And the LORD has sent to you all His servants the prophets again and again, but you have not listened nor inclined your ear to hear . . . Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘Because you have not obeyed My words, behold, I will send and take all the families of the north . . . and I will send to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, My servant, and will bring them against this land and against its inhabitants and against all these nations round about . . . This whole land will be a desolation and a horror, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon’” (Jeremiah 25:4-11). Scholars indicate that Jeremiah began his prophetic ministry around 626 BC. And sure enough, the Babylonians, under the leadership of King Nebuchadnezzar, conquered Jerusalem in 586 BC, just as prophesied.

Jeremiah also prophesied that the captivity of the Jewish people in Babylon would last for seventy years, at which point the prophet said the Jewish people would be set free to return to Jerusalem and the Holy Land. “‘Then it will be when seventy years are completed I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation . . . For behold, days are coming,’ declares the LORD, ‘when I will restore the fortunes of My people Israel and Judah.’ The LORD says, ‘I will also bring them back to the land that I gave to their forefathers and they shall possess it’” (Jeremiah 25:12; 30:3).

The prophet Daniel was one of the exiles living in the Babylonian Empire during this time. He had been taken captive at a young age and had grown up and been educated in the capital of Babylon. Yet while he had a powerful and intimate relationship with the God of Israel, he did not realize that the captivity was prophesied to last for a specific period of time. One day, however, as he was having his daily Bible study and poring over the prophecies of Jeremiah, he was startled by what he found. “I, Daniel, observed in the books the number of the years which was revealed as the word of the LORD to Jeremiah the prophet for the completion of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years,” Daniel would later write. “So I gave my attention to the Lord God to seek Him by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes” (Daniel 9:2-3). Daniel confessed his sins and the sins of his people and asked the Lord to have mercy and to forgive the Jewish people for turning their backs on the Lord. What’s more, he asked the Lord to keep his promise and release the Jewish people from captivity at the end of seventy years. This, of course, is precisely what happened. The Babylonian Empire was conquered by the neighboring Medo-Persian Empire, and the Jewish people were eventually set free to return to Israel and Jerusalem by order of the Persian king, right on the prophetic schedule.

The Prophecies about Four World Empires Came True

Among the most fascinating examples of Bible prophecies coming to pass is the dramatic dream of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar.

One night, the king had an unusually vivid dream about future events. The dream was so troubling that he could not sleep, and he called together the wise men of his kingdom to seek their counsel. In chapter 2 of the book of Daniel, we learn that the king’s most senior advisors anxiously waited for the king to tell them the dream so they could interpret it, but the king refused. “If you do not make known to me the dream and its interpretation, you will be torn limb from limb and your houses will be made a rubbish heap,” he said (v. 5). The magicians and conjurers and sorcerers again insisted that the king first share the dream and then they would explain it to him, but Nebuchadnezzar became enraged. “I know for certain that you are bargaining for time, inasmuch as you have seen that the command from me is firm, that if you do not make the dream known to me, there is only one decree for you. For you have agreed together to speak lying and corrupt words before me until the situation is changed; therefore tell me the dream, that I may know that you can declare to me its interpretation” (v. 8).

The king’s advisors were incredulous—and terrified. They had just been threatened with death. Yet they were in an impossible situation. They were fully prepared to analyze future events for their monarch, using all the worldly knowledge and experience they possessed. But how could they possibly tell the king what his dream meant until they knew what his dream was? And how could they know what his private dream was unless he told them? “There is not a man on earth who could declare the matter for the king, inasmuch as no great king or ruler has ever asked anything like this of any magician, conjurer, or Chaldean,” they replied. “The thing which the king demands is difficult, and there is no one else who could declare it to the king except gods, whose dwelling place is not with mortal flesh” (vv. 10-11).

The furious Nebuchadnezzar then ordered that all the wise men of Babylon be put to death. Daniel, a young man at the time, was among this group. He had a reputation for having a relationship with a God who interpreted dreams and provided extraordinary wisdom. When Daniel heard about the death sentence, he went to the king and requested some time to respond to the king’s demands. Nebuchadnezzar agreed. “Then,” the Bible tells us, “Daniel went to his house and informed his friends . . . about the matter” and asked them to pray for “compassion from the God of heaven” (vv. 17-18) so that the Lord would reveal the dream and its interpretation, and so their lives would be saved. “Then the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a night vision,” the Scriptures explain (v. 19). Daniel thanked the Lord profusely for being a prayer-hearing and prayer-answering God, a wonder-working God. Then Daniel humbly went before the king.

“Are you able to make known to me the dream which I have seen and its interpretation?” King Nebuchadnezzar asked (v. 26).

“As for the mystery about which the king has inquired, neither wise men, conjurers, magicians, nor diviners are able to declare it to the king,” Daniel replied. “However, there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and He has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will take place in the latter days” (vv. 27-28).

Daniel understood that only God “removes kings and establishes kings” and that “it is He who reveals the profound and hidden things” (vv. 21-22). Daniel, therefore, took no credit for what he did that day. Instead, he gave all the credit to the Lord as he explained that the king had dreamed about a great statue with a head of gold, a body and arms of silver, a belly and thighs of bronze, legs of iron, and feet partly made of iron and partly made of clay. Daniel then described how all the different elements were crushed by a stone “cut out without hands” (v. 34). Nebuchadnezzar was stunned. Daniel had his full attention, for that was exactly what he had dreamed. Now, what did it mean?

Daniel explained that the head of gold represented Nebuchadnezzar, overseeing the Babylonian Empire. “After you there will arise another kingdom [of silver] inferior to you, then another third kingdom of bronze . . . Then there will be a fourth kingdom as strong as iron.” But that, Daniel said, would be “a divided kingdom” (vv. 39-41).

Remarkably, Daniel had not simply told the king the substance of his private dreams. He had also explained that this dream was given by God to describe future events, namely the coming destruction of the Babylonian Empire and the rise and fall of three other great world empires, one after another.

The accuracy of Daniel’s analysis is startling. Just as he said, the Babylonians were overtaken by the Medo-Persian Empire, which was symbolized by silver, a metal precious to the Persians to this day. The Medo-Persian Empire was then overtaken by the Greek Empire, represented in the dream by bronze. The Greek Empire was overtaken by the Roman Empire, with its iron-strong military might, so powerful it overwhelmed all others before it. The Roman Empire was, as Daniel foretold, a divided kingdom. It was ruled for a time by four coemperors. Later, it was divided into eastern and western empires, with its western seat of power in Rome and its eastern portion becoming known as the Byzantine Empire, whose seat of power was centered in the city known in antiquity as Byzantium—the city that was later called Constantinople and is known today as Istanbul.

The Prophecies about the First Coming of the Messiah Came True

One of the most compelling reasons we can trust that Bible prophecies related to the second coming of the Messiah will come to pass is because the prophecies related to the Messiah’s first coming have already come to pass.

The Hebrew prophet Micah, for example, told us the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem Ephrathah, a town located south of Jerusalem in the area of Judea. “‘But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity.’ . . . And He will arise and shepherd His flock in the strength of the LORD” (Micah 5:2-4). Sure enough, some seven hundred years later, the Lord Jesus was born in Bethlehem Ephrathah, just as the prophecy foretold.

The prophet Isaiah, meanwhile, told us that the Messiah would be born as a male child, yet he would actually be God himself and would live and minister and bring divine light to the people of Israel. “The people who walk in darkness will see a great light,” Isaiah wrote. “For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; and the government will rest on His shoulders; and His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:2, 6). Sure enough, God became flesh for a time by being born into the world as a baby boy named Jesus, who grew up to live, minister, and bring a great light to the people of the Galilee region, as well as to all of Israel and the world.

The prophet Daniel, writing nearly six hundred years before the time of Jesus, told us that while the Messiah would come to make atonement for our sins and bring mankind into everlasting righteousness, something tragic would happen to him, and at some time after that, Jerusalem and the holy Temple would be destroyed by an invading power. God declared in Daniel 9:24-26 that a certain period of human history had been “decreed for your people [the Jews] and your holy city [Jerusalem], to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, [and] to bring in everlasting righteousness,” and then “the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing,” and after that, “the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary.” Sure enough, the Lord Jesus came early in the first century AD, he was “cut off” through a terrible torture and crucifixion at the hands of the Roman army around AD 32, and then in AD 70 the Romans destroyed the city of Jerusalem and the Temple, just as Daniel prophesied.

The Prophecies Spoken by Jesus Came True

Another reason we can trust the prophecies found in the Bible is that the prophecies uttered by the Lord Jesus himself have all come true, except for those that will be fulfilled in the Tribulation, by his second coming, and by events he spoke of that will occur after his second coming.

For example, Jesus once told his disciples, who had not caught any fish after fishing all night on the Sea of Galilee, that they would catch some fish by casting their nets on the other side of the boat, and his prediction came true immediately. He told them, “‘Cast the net on the right-hand side of the boat and you will find a catch.’ So they cast, and then they were not able to haul it in because of the great number of fish” (see John 21:1-6).

Another time Jesus pronounced that a fig tree that didn’t have any fruit on it would never bear fruit again, and it happened within twenty-four hours. “May no one ever eat fruit from you again!” Jesus said. The next day, “as they were passing by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots up. Being reminded, Peter said to Him, ‘Rabbi, look, the fig tree which You cursed has withered’” (see Mark 11:11-21).

Jesus prophesied that the Second Temple in Jerusalem would be destroyed, and it came to pass about forty years later (see Matthew 24:1-2).

Jesus prophesied that he would “go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day,” and his torture, execution, and resurrection dramatically and miraculously occurred less than three years later (see Matthew 16:21-23 and Matthew 26–28).

Shortly before his death, Jesus prophesied that Peter would deny knowing him three times before the rooster crowed the following morning, and it happened just as he said it would—despite Peter’s intense promises to the contrary (see Matthew 26:31-35 and Matthew 26:69-75).

Jesus prophesied after his resurrection that his disciples would be “baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now,” and it came to pass within a few days (see Acts 1:5 and Acts 2:1-4).

The fact that Jesus was both a great prophet and the Messiah should not come as a surprise. Centuries before, Moses had told the children of Israel to expect a prophet in the future who would be like himself in the sense that he would speak the words of God and demonstrate the power of God through great signs and wonders. Moses warned the people to listen to and obey the future prophet or face the judgment of God. “The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your countrymen, [and] you shall listen to him,” Moses explained. “The LORD said to me, ‘. . . I will raise up a prophet from among their countrymen like you, and I will put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. It shall come about that whoever will not listen to My words which he shall speak in My name, I Myself will require it of him” (Deuteronomy 18:15, 17-19).

In the early years of the first century AD, the rabbis and priests from Jerusalem heard about the things John the Baptist was doing, and they wondered whether he was the one Moses had foretold. “Are you the Prophet?” they asked him. John replied, “No. . . . I am a voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as Isaiah the prophet said” (John 1:21-23). Then John saw Jesus and declared, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! . . . I myself have seen, and have testified that this is the Son of God” (John 1:29, 34). In other words, John the Baptist made it crystal clear to the people of Israel that he was not the prophet of whom Moses spoke, but Jesus was. Many Jewish people began to realize this for themselves after hearing Jesus teach with authority and seeing him perform miracles that could only be done by the power of God. “This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world,” they said in Galilee after Jesus supernaturally fed more than five thousand people with just five loaves of barley bread and two fish (see John 6:1-14).

The apostles eventually understood this and preached it as well. “Repent and return [to the Lord], so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord; and that He may send Jesus, the Christ [or Messiah] appointed for you, whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time,” the apostle Peter said to a crowd of very curious Jewish people at the Temple after a lame man had been healed at Peter’s command. He continued, “Moses said, ‘The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren; to Him you shall give heed to everything He says to you. And it will be that every soul that does not heed that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people’” (Acts 3:19-23).

Bottom Line

The Bible actually contains about one thousand prophecies, more than half of which have already been fulfilled.[107] Most of the prophecies that are yet to be fulfilled relate to the events of the last days of human history before the second coming of Jesus Christ. These include prophecies about the Rapture, the Tribulation, and the Day of the Lord, all of which we will examine in due course. Other major Bible prophecies will be fulfilled during the thousand-year reign of Christ on earth (known as the millennial kingdom), the final battle between God and Satan at the end of history, and the establishment of the new heavens and the new earth. While it is beyond the scope of this book to provide a survey of the more than five hundred Bible prophecies that have already come to pass, let me encourage you to carefully study and test the Bible and ask God to reveal to you the truths contained therein.

Now, with this foundation established, let’s continue in our journey to examine the questions “Are we living in the last days?” and “Is America mentioned specifically in Bible prophecy?” Then, as we understand what the Bible says and how to examine events and trends in the United States and around the globe through the third lens of Scripture, we will be able to effectively answer our central questions, “What happens to America in the last days?” and “Is America heading for an implosion?”