A New Chapter for America and the World?

From this moment America's decline is over," Donald Trump stated after taking the oath of office Jan. 20, 2025 to become the country's 47th president. His address from the Capitol Rotunda seemed as much a proclamation to the world as to the nation. "The golden age of America begins right now," he said. "From this day forward, our country will flourish and be respected again all over the world. We will be the envy of every nation. And we will not allow ourselves to be taken advantage of any longer."

A golden age? That remains to be seen. In any case, there is an opportunity for great change for the better. Of course, God's will is paramount. What is happening, and what needs to happen?

Reversals in immigration, energy and DEI

The president declared war on the Mexican drug cartels, labeling them foreign terrorist groups. He sealed the southern border. Within hours federal agents began rounding up and deporting more serious criminal elements among the millions of people who have poured into the country illegally in recent years.

"Drill, baby, drill" becomes the operative phrase for extracting oil and natural gas to make the nation not only energy independent but an energy exporter to help reduce the huge national debt and bring down costs of everything, boosting economic prosperity-counter to recent bans on offshore and federal lands drilling. We will likely see a resurgence of energy infrastructure shut down during the Biden administration.

President Trump declared in his speech, "From now on there will be only two genders in America, male and female." By executive order he removed "Diversity, Equity and Inclusion" (DEI) policies, stating government hiring and promotion will be merit-based. Later in the week he signed an executive order confirming U.S. policy will "recognize two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality." Many major companies followed suit by removing DEI practice from their corporate environment.

Pro-life signals

On Friday, Jan. 24, more than 100,000 supporters of the right to life marched in Washington in the annual March for Life. Vice President J.D. Vance spoke live to the crowd and President Trump addressed the people by video. Vance said: "I want more babies in the United States of America. I want more happy children in our country, and I want beautiful young men and women who are eager to welcome them into the world and eager to raise them. And it is the task of our government to make it easier for young moms and dads to afford to have kids, to bring them into the world and to welcome them as the blessings that we know they are here at the March for Life."

On that Friday, President Trump signed an executive order to end the use of federal taxpayer dollars to fund or promote elective abortion. He also signed a presidential memorandum reinstating the Mexico City Policy to stop the use of federal taxpayer dollars for abortion overseas. Other actions in support of the unborn were signed that week.

Underscoring the sanctity of life, the U.S. House of Representatives again passed the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, ensuring that those babies who survived botched abortions enjoy equal protection under law. But it failed to advance in the U.S. Senate by a vote of 52-47.

While abortion has been made legal in many states, the issue still remains a central part of debate in America. The Trump administration's actions in the first week guarantee the issue is not settled. But it has sadly been relegated to a losing issue even among the political right. In running for office, Trump said that if Congress passed a national abortion ban, he would not sign it. (See "The Disturbing Waning Resistance to Abortion".)

Abortion is the central moral issue of our day. Life comes from God. Human life is sacred. When government moves by policy to protect its unborn, it should be noted as significant. God holds the key of life and death. When man destroys the unborn, he is defying the will and purpose of God. A nation that kills its unborn will suffer the judgment of God. It will cease to exist, just as every prior culture of death has. God is not mocked, and what the nation sows it shall reap.

Abortion defies the will of God. Every day thousands of legal abortions occur. It is not a settled issue in the nation. God's judgment awaits the nation on the matter. This is the critical moral issue of the time.

Planting the flag on Mars

The president has forged alliances with key leaders in the tech field. His relationship with the world's richest man, Elon Musk, whose SpaceX program is leading the nation into a new frontier of space exploration, is probably the most significant. Musk's support on the campaign trail was instrumental in validating Trump with younger Americans. Musk's ambition is to make mankind an "interstellar race," starting with traveling to Mars and beyond. Trump called for the planting of the American flag on Mars.

In Trump's new term in office, leaders of tech industries have made the calculation to work with him rather than oppose him. There is every reason to believe this will benefit their business. "Onshoring" tech jobs that have gone to China will benefit the American economy, the American worker and Americans in general. History shows that when the key sectors of government, industry, education and culture cooperate, promoting liberty and free market practices, the nation prospers.

It is certainly possible that a new age of American prosperity and influence is beginning. The American economy is the world's strongest. The dollar is king. America leads, and the world is watching.

Restoring national greatness

The catchphrase Donald Trump and his supporters have rallied behind for more than 10 years now, "Make America Great Again," reaches for something beyond politics, whether recognized or not. The matter of American greatness reflects what God has done among the modern nations, not man, and should be considered from a biblical perspective.

Countless articles in Beyond Today have shown that the greatness of America's power, economy and position in the world is due not to American exceptionalism or nationalistic policies. Political acumen alone is not responsible for the singular role America has held in world affairs for more than a century.

America is "great" by any measure through the grace and promises of God. Its vast land rich in resources and sheltered by two great oceans is a marvel of world geography. Its natural harbors and temperate climate are factors many observers have attributed to God. It's as if the land mass was specially formed, held in reserve through the ages, and given to a people imbued with the talents and drive to develop the resources into a world power. Despite those who disdain the nation as illegitimate and immoral and eagerly promote its demise, America has on balance been a force for good in the world unmatched by any other nation in history.

Early president John Quincy Adams recognized that America was "destined by God and nature to be the most populous and most powerful people ever combined under one social compact." This is all traceable to the biblical promises God made to Abraham and his descendants. We chronicle the story in our study guide The United States and Britain in Bible Prophecy.

Trump's goal of restored national power took on new life with his post-election comments that America should retake possession of the Panama Canal, a U.S. creation ceded to Panama in 1999 according to a 1977 agreement made during the Carter administration. The Panama Canal serves as a vital sea gate, part of the prophesied "gates of your enemies" foretold as part of the promise to Abraham's descendants (see Genesis 22:17; Genesis 24:60). Control of this sea lane between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans is critical to American economic and military interests. It is part of a line of defense that keeps the peace in the Western Hemisphere. It's now being used to take advantage of the United States while benefiting China.

Trump also began talking about bringing Greenland into the American sphere of influence. The vast island nation, currently administered by Denmark, holds vast amounts of untapped natural resources, many of which are vital to national interests. The Arctic ice cap is changing along the northern coast. A passageway for ships is opening. Control of this northern Arctic passage by any power will allow control of access to resources and become a vital military asset. Were hostile powers like China or Russia to take control, it would dramatically realign the geostrategic balance of power.

The biblical teaching of America's God-ordained destiny and position is crucial to understand here. The Bible foretells a period called Jacob's trouble (Jeremiah 30:7), when the modern nations that are the recipients of the Abrahamic promises of blessings and national greatness will be eclipsed by a world power called "Babylon." Bible prophecy describes a beast-like power rising from the nations, exerting a tyrannical influence over the world. This time of Jacob's trouble, also called the "Great Tribulation" (Matthew 24:21-22), will signal a world shift toward events leading to the end of the age and Jesus Christ's return.

The need for national repentance

Perhaps the most striking statement made by President Trump was his bold declaration: "I believe my life was saved for a reason. I was saved by God to make America great again."

What if it's true that Donald Trump was saved from two assassination attempts by God's grace and will? What would that mean for him and the nation he leads? What would it mean for you?

Deliverance by God comes with a responsibility, an obligation, a duty to fulfill. President Trump should listen to what God says. As leader of a great nation, he would have to bow his knee to God and seek His will. If he was saved by God to truly "make America great again," he would have to lead America to unprecedented national repentance.

President Trump and other national leaders would need to heed the words of God spoken to a greatly blessed nation meant to set an example to others of obeying God's laws: "Therefore be careful to observe them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes, and say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people'" (Deuteronomy 4:6).

They would need to read further and listen to God's warning: "Take heed to yourselves, lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God which He made with you . . . When you beget children and grandchildren and have grown old in the land, and act corruptly . . . and do evil in the sight of the Lord your God to provoke Him to anger, I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that you will soon utterly perish . . . And the Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the Lord will drive you" (Deuteronomy 4:23-27).

Through the prophet Jeremiah, God said the nation would be punished for its immoral conduct at every level (Jeremiah 5:7-9).

America still suffers from the sin of abortion. Drugs such as fentanyl, produced in foreign countries and injected into the lifeblood of a generation, continue to ravage lives. A culture of greed and materialism still dominates. Any hope of making America "great" in God's eyes will have to address ways that are not grounded in the Ten Commandments.

There is a systemic problem at the core of the nation. Founded as a pluralistic society of religious freedom, America has been a nation of religious, even biblical, values. But this religion missed the center mark of biblical truth. The Judeo-Christian ethic was missing critical elements-God's Sabbaths and the absence of idolatry. It was for these two sins that God sent ancient Israel into captivity (Ezekiel 20:12-16).

Thinking all faiths are equal, America's pluralistic society had a fatal flaw from its start. Even while God's promises to Abraham were exactly fulfilled, and America has been a powerful benevolent and "great" nation, it has suffered the lack of true knowledge from God and of practicing His ways. Religious holidays laced with pagan elements have hidden the knowledge of the true God and His purpose for mankind.

The words of the prophet Hosea give an accurate description of the United States: "Hear the word of the Lord, you children of Israel, for the Lord brings a charge against the inhabitants of the land: ‘There is no truth or mercy or knowledge of God in the land. By swearing and lying, killing and stealing and committing adultery, they break all restraint, with bloodshed upon bloodshed. Therefore the land will mourn . . .

"‘My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge . . . The more they increased, the more they sinned against Me . . . They set their heart on their iniquity . . . So I will punish them for their ways, and reward them for their deeds'" (Hosea 4:1-9). Just as God punished ancient Israel for its sins, He plans to punish its modern descendants for their persistent disobedience.

A Nineveh moment

Could national repentance happen? Could America come to that on such a level that God's judgment is withheld? It happened once in the Assyrian capital of Nineveh at the preaching of the biblical prophet Jonah. Such reform would truly "make America great again." But anything less would lead to the future collapse described in these and many other prophecies. We should pray President Trump would be led to see this as the greatest policy he could implement.

We at Beyond Today believe we should cry out to God about the sins of this nation. We should not be passive bystanders to history and Bible prophecy. God ordered in vision that a mark be set on those who "sigh and cry over all the abominations that are done within [the city]" (Ezekiel 9:4).

God says His people who humble themselves and pray for forgiveness will be heard: "If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land" (2 Chronicles 7:14). This is a promise from God. Has any nation done this in history? What would happen if the president led the nation in such a prayer? We may never know. But the promise can be yours. You can change and obey God's law in its fullness.

We urge you to consider this to be such a moment for yourself. America may be at a fork in the road, a pause in cosmic time, where there is opportunity for this message to reach hearts and minds. This is a call to consider making your life "great" within the truth of God. This can be your moment to turn to Him!

📖 Take the First Step: "Forgiveness Is Possible"

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