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Does the United States Appear in Bible Prophecy?
Posted on Feb 12, 2010
by Howard Davis
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Estimated reading time: 13 minutes
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Small nations like Egypt, Jordan and Libya are found in Bible prophecies of the time of the end. But what about the major English-speaking countries like the United States, Britain, Canada and Australia? Are they absent from Bible prophecy, or do we just not know where to look?
Does the United States Appear in Bible Prophecy? UCG.org
Does the United States Appear in Bible Prophecy?
This may sound like crazy fiction to many people—and maybe to you too. But a considerable amount of Bible prophecy specifically talks about the United States and other major English-speaking Western nations at our time in history—a time the Bible calls “the time of the end.”
Most readers of the Bible believe it’s the basis of spiritual truth. Many know that a large number of prophecies are found within it. But without the vital key to understanding where these nations are found in Scripture, Christians cannot perceive what’s going to happen next in the world.
Nations small and great described in Bible prophecy
Several midsize and smaller nations, such as Egypt, Jordan and Libya, are identified clearly in the Bible. So does it makes sense that the greatest single nation of our time or the greatest community of nations would be left out?
Many events now in the past were laid out in advance in the Bible. God’s prophets accurately foretold the rise and fall of great empires and nations, and sometimes specific kings one after another. Many prophecies, including those dealing with the United States and other major English-speaking nations today, were spoken and written down thousands of years before their fulfillment.
Prophecies make up a fourth to a third of the Bible. But why are the scriptures that identify the United States and give advance news of its future not widely taught or understood among Christians today?
A primary reason is that the key to understanding the most sweeping prophecies has gone largely ignored. It can be found in the first books of the Bible—especially the book of Genesis.
Key to the prophecies of the United States
In the book of Genesis we find that God made great promises to one man—Abram, whose name was changed to Abraham. We read about this first in Genesis 12:1-3: “Now the Lord had said to Abram: ‘Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed’ ” (emphasis added throughout).
Within God’s statement to Abram are two promises. The first is that God would make from him “a great nation.” Now when God calls something great, it is great!
Most people are blind to the tremendous meaning of this promise today. If they have any opinion at all, most think modern Jews fulfill this prophecy. But they are wrong. Although significant, the Jewish people have constituted a relatively small nation in world history—with modern nation-states such as the United States, China, India, Russia, Germany, Britain and others far exceeding them in terms of national greatness.
And indeed, God’s promises of national greatness to Abraham’s descendants have been fulfilled among other great nations—nations related to the Jewish people, as we will see.
Most churches generally acknowledge the second part of God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis 12—that “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” This deals principally with the saving knowledge of the coming Messiah, Jesus Christ, and God’s gift of eternal life through Him.
However, God intended to shape all history through His promises to Abraham’s descendants of building a great nation—one that would dominate the world in the time before Christ’s second coming. Another would have significant influence over much of the rest of the world.
Promise of a great nation and multiple nations
Later God expanded His national promises to Abraham. He said, “I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth; so that if a man could number the dust of the earth, then your descendants also could be numbered” (Genesis 13:16).
Then, when Abraham was 99 years old, God spoke again, making these national promises even bigger, more elaborate and everlasting: “I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you” (Genesis 17:6). So not just a single nation but multiple nations would descend from Abraham.
God also promised that He would deal with Abraham’s descendants directly. He would guide their history through the ups and downs of prosperity, peace, war and poverty, whether they acknowledged Him or not: “And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you” (verse 7).
It’s important to recognize that the covenant promises of national greatness—including multiple nations—were to be fulfilled through Abraham’s son Isaac (compare verses 19-21).
Notice that at first God told Abraham his descendants would possess and rule over the land of Canaan where Abraham sojourned: “Lift your eyes now and look from the place where you are—northward, southward, eastward, and westward; for all the land which you see I give to you and your descendants forever” (Genesis 13:14-15).
The land of Canaan is all the territory that theologians, Christian and Jewish, will acknowledge as the national promise to Abraham. But next let’s notice that this promise extended to vast regions of the entire earth, not just the sliver of land in the Middle East. This fact helps to explain the many more Bible prophecies indicating that the Israelites would be spread throughout the world in the future—prophecies not fulfilled in the ancient world.
The expansion was revealed in a dream to Abraham’s grandson through Isaac, Jacob—whose name was later changed to Israel. First, God reconfirmed that Jacob’s descendants were to possess Canaan. God began the prophecy saying, “The land on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants” (Genesis 28:13).
A few centuries after the dream, Jacob’s descendants were led out of Egypt and occupied the land of Canaan. This fulfilled the first part of the dream promise, but the Israelite territory was generally much smaller than the Egyptian empire and other great empires of the ancient world, except for a short time under David and Solomon.
But notice that God added a huge extension of national greatness in Jacob’s dream: “Also your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth ; you shall spread abroad to the west and the east, to the north and the south” (verse 14). They were to move far beyond their boundaries in the Middle East!
Later, God made it clear that the promise of multiple nations was to come through Jacob. In fact, God specifically told Jacob that through him would come “a nation and a company of nations” (Genesis 35:11)
