America the beautiful–from sea to shining sea, her good crowned by God, with brotherhood. One gets the cerebral image of Lady Liberty, her torch held high, gleaming in the early morning or twilight for all the world to see and seek to emulate. It is a vision with which I and others of my generation grew up. The purple mountains’ majesty topped by crowns of snow against powder blue skies, golden-yellow grain waving silkily upon vast plains that seem to go on forever. And, again, the Statue of Liberty standing on Ellis Island, welcoming the downtrodden who come seeking a new life (in the legally specified way) in the most materially blessed nation to have ever existed topside of Planet Earth.

Truly, the United States of America has been a golden cup in God’s mighty hand. And it still is so–to a significant degree—continuing to disseminate the Good News, the Gospel, to most every point on earth through technologies developed for the most part through American ingenuity and wealth.

This nation was used by God to bring Israel to birth in its modern incarnation. We have continued to stand by that people of the promises; at least the American government continues to assure her survival as a nation-state under the constant threat of enemies avowed to push her into the Mediterranean.

All that said, America is no longer “beautiful.” Not in the sense of “her good.” Sadly, her “brotherhood” has been lost to multiculturalism, pluralism in most every aspect of American life, and political correctness, which now is the standard, replacing the biblical moorings to which the founding fathers tethered the country.

She is going the way of ancient Babylon, about which Jeremiah the prophet said the following: “Babylon [hath been] a golden cup in the LORD’S hand, that made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunken of her wine; therefore the nations are mad” (Jer. 51:7).

God said through the prophet that Babylon was no longer useful as His instrument to bless the world. Now it had become a curse. Her golden cup was tarnished beyond restoration. Could the same apply to our nation today? Is this why America, the land you and I love, not mentioned by name–or, in my view, even by inference–anywhere in Bible prophecy?

I once wrote a book –The American Apocalypse– that addresses the question we who write or speak on Bible prophecy are asked almost every time upon such occasions: “Is America in Bible prophecy?”

We are a nation who has had the most truth from the mind of God of any nation to have existed–right up there, I’m convinced, with Israel. As a matter of fact, God choosing the U.S. to be key to bringing Israel to birth in 1948, and our receiving great abilities for technological development–and at the same time God’s truth–is no coincidence.

But our golden cup is tarnished because, like Babylon of ancient times, we have exported our “wine” to make all of the nations “drunk.” We have contributed to the perversity and madness the insanity that now threatens America and the world.

It is perhaps fitting, in that regard, that America’s mighty dollar is in decline, as is widely acknowledged by most of the world’s most knowledgeable economists. Gold is the monetary instrument against which the ailing dollar is measured, and the prognosis is not good.

The dollar’s lower value, brought on in large part by cuts in interest rates, affects the dynamics of the global economy. A weaker dollar makes gold cheaper for other currency holders and lifts metal demand. Gold is also seen as a hedge against oil-led inflation.

Already, America’s tarnished reputation is causing difficulties throughout world financial circles. This fact increases pressure to move forward with the matters involving what was formerly termed the North American Union (NAU) –now the region called the “NORTH AMERICAN LEADERS SUMMIT (NALS)– we have been hearing so much about.

One source once said the following:

In order to bring about a North American Union (NAU), the public first has to be conditioned to think of themselves as North Americans. Efforts to effect such a change in thinking has been underway for years. In that regard, Thomas Donohue (Then president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce) on June 16, 2006 remarked that “for CEOs, North America is already a single market, and business decisions are no longer made with a Mexico strategy—or a Canada strategy—but, rather, with a North American strategy….I think it’s pretty clear now that it no longer makes sense to talk about U.S. competitiveness and Mexican competitiveness—or, for that matter, about the competitiveness of Canada. We are all in this together—we, as North Americans” (The August Review: Global Elite Research Center, The North American Union and the Larger Plan, By Dennis L. Cuddy, Ph.D, August, 2007).

Things have progressed dramatically since those formative times. Rearrangements taking place even now seem to be setting the stage for governing authority that will provide controls on full-blown economic chaos during mankind’s most terrible time in history. During the tribulation, there will be great famine, leading to pestilences and death. God’s prophetic Word gives us this glimpse of that future time:

And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand. And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine (Rev. 6:5-6).

Will the (NALS,) with America’s sovereignty and autonomy absorbed, be part of the prophesied ten kingdoms out of which Antichrist will come after securing his monetary power base? “And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast. These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast” (Rev. 17:12-13).