(I know the following post is more fitted for the Religion forum, but it’s meant as an answer to your post)
If He answers “No”, it could be because He’s setting up the End Times for His people.
My pastor has said a few times that he can’t find America mentioned or even alluded to anywhere in the Scriptures. It could be (and this is pure speculation) that America is destroyed or so weakened/marginalized that we don’t figure anywhere in the End Times. And...it could be the Zero is the one God has set aside to accomplish this.
You said — “My pastor has said a few times that he can’t find America mentioned or even alluded to anywhere in the Scriptures. It could be (and this is pure speculation) that America is destroyed or so weakened/marginalized that we don’t figure anywhere in the End Times. And...it could be the Zero is the one God has set aside to accomplish this.”
Well..., I’ve heard this frequently at Prophecy Conferences and other pastors speaking about it. However, it’s a very, very weak argument.
The fact that a country is not mentioned directly is supposed to mean that they are not there or do not exist or have been destroyed. Well, if that’s the case, then we can say that about half the nations in the world are probably going to be destroyed, just like America, at these end-times events (with that logic).
A more likely scenario is that the focus is on Israel and its immediate and prime enemies — which happen to be the Muslim nations. And it could very well be that the U.S. simply does not take any significant part in the process of what will happen at that time, because the “policies” of the U.S. will have probably changed, leaving Israel pretty much on its own.
However, there is an indication that the U.S. is there, along with a confederation of nations who asks the following...
Sheba, Dedan, the merchants of Tarshish, and all their young lions will say to you, ‘Have you come to take plunder? Have you gathered your army to take booty, to carry away silver and gold, to take away livestock and goods, to take great plunder?’ “ ‘
This is in Ezekiel 38:13, and may be an indication of the U.S. and other countries...
I don’t think the U.S. has disappeared or is not active in the community of nations, just like they are now. It may simply be that the policy of the U.S. will have changed by then and the U.S. is not as involved in the peace process (not as “hands on” as it is trying to be now).
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There is a guy named Walid Shoebat (who has been all over the news and was a Muslim terrorist, now a Christian), who has a view on Biblical prophecy from the standpoint of how it seems from a Middle East perspective and that from Arabs and Jews (according to what the Bible says). He seems to be of the opinion that this is untrue about the U.S. (what these other pastors say) and that it indicates a lack of knowledge of the Middle East to say that.
You should look him up and see what he has to say about that.
Could be. Lock and load and wait and see. :)