“Once monkeys learn they can vote themselves bananas, they’ll never climb another tree.” Robert A Heinlein

There was a post on the Omegaletter Community Facebook page this morning asking, “Will America exist in the end times?”  

In a manner of speaking, it no longer exists now.  The America that exists today isn’t the robust America I grew up in during the post-war Golden Age.

The America of today used to only exist in movies about the future depicting America as a crumbling or collapsed dictatorship, usually symbolized by a partially destroyed Statue of Liberty.

In the real world, the symbol is the absence of the Twin Towers.  A more appropriate, albeit less spectacular symbol of America’s slide toward irrelevancy would be the United Nations complex on the East River.

Today, the Palestinian Authority thumbed its nose at the United States as Mahmoud Abbas moved forward with plans to gain full UN membership for his Palestinian Authority, despite the opposition of the Palestinian majority parliamentary government. 

Of course, Abbas actually isn’t the president of the Palestinian Authority.  His term expired in January 2009.  But new elections might result in another electoral victory for Hamas – (did I mention that Hamas is the ruling majority in the PA parliament?)

And so Abbas simply canceled the elections, flouting the PA’s ‘constitution’, and refused to step down.  PA Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, (and leader of Hamas) condemned Abbas’ statehood efforts because Hamas refuses to recognize Israel and continues to demand her destruction.

Hamas official Kalil al Haya was quoted in Israeli papers saying that any recognition of Palestine should be of the entire country, not the 1967 borders.

“Recognition should be sought for the entirety of the Palestinian territory, and the Palestinian right to live within this country’s borders acknowledged. We ask the UN to annul the entity that decided to settle on the land of others.”

(Did I mention that Haniyeh’s term – and the terms of the whole Palestinian parliament – also expired in 2009? Hamas canceled elections because they already had a majority and they liked it that way.)

So Abbas is demanding statehood for a ‘Palestinian people’  –a “people” without an individual nationality, language, culture, history or a legal government – half of whom both oppose statehood and embrace terrorism.

Nabil Shaath, senior aide to Abbas, told The Associated Press that the Palestinian leader informed U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon during their meeting Monday that he would present him with a letter requesting full membership on Friday, ahead of Abbas’ speech to the General Assembly.

Any candidate for U.N. membership must submit a letter to the secretary-general stating it is a “peace-loving” state and accepts the U.N. Charter. Ban is expected to examine the Palestinian letter and then send it to the 15-member U.N. Security Council, which must give its approval before a vote in the larger General Assembly.

Ishtayeh said the letter will state: “Palestine is a peace-loving state and has contributed to human civilization that it has succeeded in building state institutions.” It would also cite the need to consider the pre-1967 Mideast War borders as those of the Palestinian state, he said.

That bit about a peace-loving state would be hysterically funny — if it weren’t so sad.

While the UN is considering the merits of Palestine as a “peace-loving state” ruled by an international terrorist organization whose contributions to human civilization included the introduction of airline hijacking as a tool of terrorism and the 1972 Olympic Munich Massacre, the unilateral effort abrogates the Oslo Agreement.

The terms of Oslo forbid either side from unilaterally altering the status of the West Bank, Gaza or Jerusalem until after final status negotiations have been concluded and signed off on by both sides. 

The Europeans also signed the agreement at the White House as witnesses.  If the EU or its member states vote in favor of changing the status of these areas, they will be invalidating their own contract.

The Quartet – the EU, US, UN and Russia – are also divided over the issue, with Russia favoring statehood for the Palestinians.

The US can veto full statehood through the Security Council, and has promised to do so.  But in an effort at face-saving, has hinted it will support an upgrade in status from an “entity” to “a non-member state” in the General Assembly.

A ‘state’ without a legal government whose only viable state institution is terrorism.

Assessment:

“And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.” (Zechariah 12:3)

Historians are fond of referring to the twentieth century as “The American Century” because it was during the early part of the last century that America became a superpower, ending that century as the world’s only superpower.  Full circle.  

It was at the mid-point of the last century – May 15, 1948 to be exact – that Bible prophecy indicated the clock had begun the countdown to the return of Jesus Christ.  The time frame was one generation.

But the Bible also says that while no man could know the day or the hour, we could know when it was “near, even at the doors.”  That is about where we are today.  “Near, even at the doors.” 

Israel has also come full circle, from winning its independence and UN recognition in 1948, (starting the countdown), to being forced to defend its very right to exist before the assembled world body, as it considers taking Jerusalem from the Jews and recognizing it as part of a (terrorist) Palestinian state.

“All that burden themselves with Jerusalem shall be cut in pieces,” the prophet said.

Although America remains the most powerful, the most wealthy, the most blessed of all the nations on earth, there is no mention of America or American influence in Bible prophecy.

Ten years into the twenty-first century, America remains the world’s only superpower, but so bled and bloodied by a rag-tag bunch of sixth-century cavemen that its national supremacy hangs by a thread. 

American influence is so diluted that its only recourse to prevent the granting of Palestinian statehood is to veto the votes of the rest of the world.

The veto is powerful, but there is a price to be paid for standing alone  – and the country is getting tired of paying it.  

The nations of the Middle East play a role in the last days.  So does Russia, China, North Africa, Europe and Asia. The Bible identifies four spheres of power in the last days.

They are; the revived Roman Empire, the Kings of the South, the Kings of the East and the Gog-Magog Alliance.  There is no mention of a fifth, overarching superpower to the west resembling America.

Where is America in prophecy?  There are a couple of possible explanations.  The first is the Rapture, which is my personal favorite.

But that’s because of the second possibility, which is that America, as a nation, is no longer of any consequence to global events in the last days — for other reasons.

As the world teeters on the brink of economic collapse, the Middle East teeters on the brink of war, and the UN teeters on the brink of insane by accepting, straight-faced, a letter calling Palestine a “peace-loving state,” Obama’s plan to save America is to raise three dollars in taxes for every one dollar reduction in entitlement spending.  

The Roman Empire, at its zenith, was a Republic.  As it degenerated into mobocracy where majority rule superceded the principles of the Republic, the empire began to wane in influence, grew weaker as citizens voted their personal self-interest rather than what benefitted the Republic, and the Roman Empire collapsed in chaos.

Panem et circenses, wrote the Roman poet, Juvenal, to describe the decline of the Roman Empire.  Bread and circuses. 

Last night, Sonny and Cher’s daughter, Chastity Bono, appeared on “Dancing With the Stars” — as a man.  Nobody really cared. (If anybody did, they kept quiet to save being shouted down as a bigot.)

“And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of My mouth.

Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:” (Revelation 3:15-18)

Where is America in Bible Prophecy?  Worshipping at the Church of Laodicea.  Laos, meaning “people” and dike meaning, “decision” — or the “Church Where the People Decide”.  

The Lukewarm Church of the wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.