{"id":179,"date":"2007-11-03T05:30:58","date_gmt":"2007-11-03T13:30:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cogwriter.com\/news\/prophecy\/ucg-commentary-whats-ahead-for-america\/"},"modified":"2007-11-03T05:30:58","modified_gmt":"2007-11-03T13:30:58","slug":"ucg-commentary-whats-ahead-for-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cogwriter.com\/news\/prophecy\/ucg-commentary-whats-ahead-for-america\/","title":{"rendered":"UCG Commentary: What&#8217;s Ahead for America?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>In its latest commentary, titled What&#8217;s Ahead for America?, <\/em><a href=\"\/ucg.htm\"><em>UCG&#8217;s<\/em><\/a><em> John Ross Schroeder\u00a0writes:<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Sensing a weakness of will, adversarial nations appear to be ganging up on the United States. Is America on its way to becoming a second-rate power?&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Alan M. Webber is founding editor of business magazine, <em>Fast Company<\/em>. On a recent business trip to Europe he heard some disturbing thoughts about the United States. At one gathering in Austria the observations came in the form of laments. &#8220;You used to be such a great country\u2026<em>What happened to the great idea that once defined America?&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Now consider Mr. Webber&#8217;s comment on America, viewing the country from afar: &#8220;You realize how far the United States has drifted from its promise, how large the gap is between what we profess and what we do&#8230;how diminished our economic superiority has become; and how worn our once impeccable image has become.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The dollar is currently viewed as a second-rate currency in Europe. The euro is looked at as towering over the once vaunted American dollar. Alan Webber asks: &#8220;Is there a point where diminished prestige actually becomes diminished economic leadership?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Summing up he concluded: &#8220;In America, it&#8217;s business as usual. We&#8217;ve simply learned to accept our way of life, <em>rather than confronting the reality of our decline<\/em>. Maybe that&#8217;s what happens to once-rich, once-powerful superpowers as they gradually decline. <em>They lose track of their own standards<\/em>&#8221; (<em>USA Today<\/em>, October 19).<\/p>\n<p>Most disturbing today is the stubborn persistence of our moral problems: abortion, pornography, adultery, male and female homosexuality and out-of-control national and personal debt\u2014to name just a few. In response to the recent tragedy at Virginia Tech, one correspondent wrote to a major American newsweekly: &#8220;Why does it perplex us when these violent eruptions take place? One needs only to channel surf the television any night of the week to see show after show dealing with murder, rape, stalkers, violence toward police, gangs, war and domestic violence.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>We don&#8217;t seem to want the Ten Commandments in our schools or in our public buildings. We break all ten of them in ways we don&#8217;t even realize anymore. Yet they provide the crucial key to a much needed moral awakening. Summing up God&#8217;s spiritual laws as revealed in the Bible, they reflect proper love and respect for both God and neighbour.<\/p>\n<p>While you and I cannot change the world, Jesus Christ does tell us that <em>being a light to the world<\/em> is important (Matthew 5:14-16). To be a proper example each of us needs to apply the moral values embodied in the Ten Commandments. We also need an understanding of what biblical prophecy reveals about the moral decline of the United States and other Western nations and the results we can expect from it.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Comments by <a href=\"\/cogwriter.htm\">COGwriter<\/a><\/strong>:<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>While I do not agree with a one or two points above, it is true that the United States is past its peak and has entered an up and down period which is expected to result mainly in decline.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The Europeans, however, are still not the world power that some think they are as they simply do not have the military power that the major superpower needs to have (though they have more military power than many seem to realize).<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>However, once the Europeans have further developed their military abilities (which I have tended to figure will be close to when their Galileo satellite positioning program is functional), they will be a real force to be reckoned with.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Both biblical and <a href=\"\/catholic.htm\">Roman Catholic <\/a>prophecies\u00a0state that a great military leader will rise up in Europe and conquer the English (and while Catholics tend to think that only includes England, we in the COGs believe that this will mainly include the English-speaking Anglo-Saxon-Celtic peoples, such as those in the USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand also).\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>While\u00a0\u00a0<a href=\"\/catholic.htm\">Roman Catholics\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0seem to be looking forward to this &#8220;Great Monarch&#8221;, we in the Churches of God believe that this military leader will be what the Bible refers to as the <a href=\"\/kingofthenorth.htm\">King of the North <\/a>and is the ten-horned Beast of Revelation who\u00a0is ridden by a non-chaste\u00a0woman (<a href=\"\/europa.htm\">Europa<\/a>).<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Interestingly, as shown before, the Europeans still have a coin showing the woman riding the Beast:<\/em><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"444\" src=\"https:\/\/www.cogwriter.com\/europacoin.gif\" alt=\"Europa Woman Riding the Beast Coin\" height=\"246\" style=\"width: 444px; height: 246px\" title=\"Europa Woman Riding the Beast Coin\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em>In needs to be understood that the Euro will have some tough times, especially if Catholic prophecies\u00a0that show future civil unrest in Europe are correct.\u00a0 But inspite\u00a0of the fact that<\/em><em>\u00a0Europe is also having\u00a0its own problems\u00a0and is not yet truly united, Bible prophecy indicates that it will rise while the USA will fall.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>As for the United States, short of full repentance which does not seem likely, it is destined to be destroyed by this European Beast power.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Repentance involves changing from doing things contrary to God&#8217;s ways and accepting them.\u00a0 That includes the ten commandments which even most Protestants do not actually believe that they need to keep.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Two articles of possibly related interest may include <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cogwriter.com\/salvation.htm\">Hope of Salvation: How the COGs differ from most Protestants<\/a> <em>and<\/em> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tomorrowsworld.org\/cgi-bin\/tw\/tw-mag.cgi?category=Magazine43&amp;item=1153024530\">Modern Nations and God\u2019s Ancient Plan<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In its latest commentary, titled What&#8217;s Ahead for America?, UCG&#8217;s John Ross Schroeder\u00a0writes: Sensing a weakness of will, adversarial nations appear to be ganging up on the United States. Is America on its way to becoming a second-rate power?&#8230; Alan M. Webber is founding editor of business magazine, Fast Company. On a recent business trip [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cog-news","category-prophecy"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cogwriter.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cogwriter.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cogwriter.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cogwriter.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cogwriter.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cogwriter.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cogwriter.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cogwriter.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cogwriter.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}