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God's Plan for America--Part 1

To understand how America fits into the divine plan prophesied in Scripture, we must first acknowledge that the name America nowhere appears in Scripture. However, this does not mean it was ignored by the prophets. The Bible uses ancient names, symbols, and animals ("beasts") to depict modern nations.

The place to start is to understand the prophetic connection between biblical Israel and America. I have already shown in other writings that Israel and Judah split into two nations after the death of Solomon (1 Kings 11). Israel only lasted another 210 years as a nation before being conquered by Assyria and deported northeast to the area near the Caspian Sea (2 Kings 17:6). Judah survived at that time, but a century later, they were conquered and deported to Babylon.

I have traced the history of both Israel and Judah in past writings in order to acquaint readers with the clear distinction between Israel and Judah. The Jews claim ancestry through the nation of Judah. ("Jew" is short for Judah.) But to understand America (and other nations of Europe), we must see its connection to the Israelites in the Assyrian dispersion.

Israel's neighboring nations did not refer to Israel by the name Israel. The Moabite Stone and the Black Obelisk of Shalmanezer prove that Israel's international name was Khumri, Ghomri, or Gimirri, and that these names were derived from King Omri (originally pronounced Ghomri in Hebrew).

The Behistun Rock, which was the tomb of King Darius the Great of Persia refers to the Israelites asGimirri in the Babylonian language, but written Saka in Persian and Sakka in the Susian language. These are the Sacae of Herodotus, the "father of history," who wrote the name in Greek.

It is well known to historians that the Khumri (or Ghomri) are the modern Celtic people. It is also known that the Sacae of the Greeks are the Saxons of the Romans, for Saxon is the Latinized form of Sacae.

There are many other groups of Israelites that went by other names as well, but this is sufficient to show that these physical Israelites (actually, ex-Israelites) migrated into Europe after the collapse of Assyria which had taken them captive. They came in many waves over the centuries, some being pushed out by wars, yet archeology has provided us with very decisive proof as to the locations and movements of these people.

It has been said that the graveyard of Israel in Assyria became the birthplace of European Civilization. The Israelites, under the prophetic name of Ghomri, or Gomer (Hosea 1:3), were deported to Assyria, where the original nation of Israel died and was buried. In the centuries that followed, these same people, under the same names, left Assyria and immigrated into the vast forests of Europe.

Eventually, America was discovered, and this immigration continued to the shores of the Pacific.

So the biblical Israelites broke God's covenant persistently, and God then raised up Assyria to judge them, conquer them, and deport them to the Caspian Sea. He stripped Israel of her Birthright name, Israel, and caused her to be dispersed and eventually to be "lost." Later, when Assyria fell, those same ex-Israelites settled Europe and formed new and separate nations.

Hosea 2:6 tells us these Israelites would not find their way back to the old land:

⁶ Therefore, behold, I will hedge up her way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her so that she cannot find her paths.

These ex-Israelites were NOT JEWS. Judah had a separate history, a separate captivity (Babylon), and they were allowed to return to the old land in order that Jesus might be born in the place that Micah prophesied (5:2).

It is then self-evident that these European ex-Israelites of the dispersion eventually settled new lands and continents beyond Europe. This included North America, and hence our focus now is on America's place in biblical prophecy. Though America is certainly not the only nation settled by these ex-Israelites, we do not have the time or space to give equal time to all of the others. Yet it should be understood that all of these nations have their place in prophecy, even as each of the tribes of Israel in the old land had its unique position and calling in biblical days.

The Puritans and Pilgrims who came in 1620 thought of themselves as The New Israel. They attempted to model their society after the biblical Israelites. When they wrote their laws, they often included a Scripture verse to show that it was indeed a righteous law of God, rather than a mere tradition of men.

In the American Revolution in the 1770's, they thought of England's King George as "Pharaoh" and themselves as the Israelites fleeing from Egypt across the Atlantic ("Red Sea"). In fact, for the Great Seal of America, Benjamin Franklin proposed a seal depicting Israel crossing the Red Sea, led by the pillar of fire, with Pharaoh's army in pursuit. To see it, go to the following site and scroll down a ways.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Seal_of_the_United_States

Early Americans did not have the benefit of modern archeology. The great archeologists arose in the 1800's after the Rosetta Stone was deciphered in 1830, allowing men to understand the old Egyptian hieroglyphic picture language. Yet the early Americans sensed that they had a strong connection to the biblical Israelites, even though they never considered themselves to be Jews.

Like all nations, however, America had both Christians and non-Christians in its ranks. Likewise, even the Christians ranged from very carnal to very spiritual, as we see today. There were the lawless and the legalists then as today. There were those who truly knew God, and there were the hypocrites--Christian in name only.

And so, when we speak of America as a prophetic entity, we must keep in mind that the nation was (and still is) a body of very diverse individuals. The spiritual life of the nation is only as good as the spiritual condition of the average citizen. In the beginning there were no immigration laws that might weed them out and keep the bad people away. And once they were here, it was virtually impossible to deny them citizenship status in the new American Republic.

This was the situation when the people and the government had to make decisions about their relations with the native Indian population and with the black slaves from Africa. Many centuries of Church life under Rome had already justified slavery--and remained largely unchanged under Protestant regimes. The thought patterns under Rome had established a "Saul" mentality, and the Protestants who broke away from Rome had not fully developed an understanding of the New Covenant.

Because so many thought of themselves as Israelites settling in their own Promised Land, many of them drew the inevitable comparison between Israel and the Canaanites. The Indians, then, were often treated as Canaanites by the legalists among them. Many read God's instruction to Joshua and used it to justify genocide against the Indians. They did not seem to comprehend that these instructions might be applied differently under the New Covenant.

In Part 2 we will study this difference and see what ought to have been done, if America had followed the standard of the Kingdom of God, rather than a mere "Christian Nation."