Greg Laurie on Why Bible Prophecy Makes No Mention of America (premillennial caucus)

Bible prophecy related to the end times mentions many nations, including Libya, Iran, Iraq Ethiopia, and possibly even China and Russia, but not the United States of America. In an article on his blog, Pastor Greg Laurie gives three plausible reasons for the nation's exclusion.

"Where is the United States? Why are we not in the last-days scenario?" asks Laurie, pastor of Harvest Church in Riverside, Calif.

One reason why the United States is not mentioned in Scripture is perhaps because the nation "might be devastated by a nuclear war," the pastor writes. "It is a horrible scenario and one that none of us would want to see, but we cannot rule it out as a possibility."

The threat remains despite the dissolution of the former Soviet Union, Laurie argues. "It could indeed be a rogue terrorist nation with nuclear capabilities, or even a terrorist group that could set off the dominoes falling onto each other. I hope this isn't the case, but we cannot rule it out."

Laurie is for a strong military for that reason. "We need to take seriously any foreign threats. But having said that, what about an internal collapse?"

A second possible reason could be that the U.S. might decline as a world power, Laurie says, quoting Proverbs 14:34, which reads, "Godliness makes a nation great, but sin is a disgrace to any people."

"As our country becomes more and more secular, systematically eliminating God and the Bible from our education system, courts, and the arts, we will begin to reap the inevitable results of sin. We will begin to rot from the inside," the pastor warns. "I think to some degree, we already have [seen that happen] as we have seen the breakdown of the family, rampant crime and so many other problems that have come from disobeying God."

Laurie points out that what once was freedom of religion seems to have now become freedom from religion. "We have succeeded in getting God out of our schools, out of our sporting events, out of our public places and out of our workplaces."

The nation needs to remember that the freedom we enjoy is built on the foundation of absolute truth, he says. "And when you remove that foundation, this freedom actually can turn into anarchy."

A third possibility could be that the U.S. will witness a revival, "which I find a lot more hopeful," Laurie goes on to say. "That is not to say a revival would eliminate us as a world power. But if our nation had a revival, it would affect us. Think about this. Let's say, for example, that one-fourth of all Americans are believers. This would mean that we have approximately 78 million true believers in our country today… When the Rapture of the church takes place, don't you think there would be an impact on the United States…?"

Laurie said we need to, therefore, pray for revival in our country today. "When I say that our nation needs God, I don't mean that we need whatever god everyone happens to believe in," he clarifies. "The only hope for America is when we turn back to the true and living God – the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God who gave us the Bible as the revelation of who he is, the God who loved us so much that he sent his own son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross in our place."

I would add another one: it is mentioned and we don’t recognize it.

The last paragraph (of the article)?

...if so, The Force is strong in you, Skywalker.

I'm stuck in dread that we won't. That could be my own flaw.

I want to get away Fly Away [Lenny Kravitz]

Someday...maybe I could tell you about that fish that swallowed Jonah. I may have caught that one, one day. Ancient old thing, I want nothing more to do with it, for it scares me, and it's still out there, swimming around.

A spirit fish, if you will.

That sounds crazy, I know. But the prophets of old could come across as whack-jobs, too.

Swallowed by a fish? Yeah, though the NT has Christ saying whale, the fish I saw in a prophetic dream, had a vertical tail fin. Then again, the Lord made no mention of that one being the one which gobbled up Jonah, before spitting him out days later at the location Jonah was told to go to. Leaving it as guesswork on my own part that the one I was shown, could have been part of how that (the big fish story) happened, with my own arriving at that type of thinking,coming only after I perceived I'd tangled with some giant 'spirit dream' fish, in the natural, with that fish somehow overlapping the more usual natural, being something beyond or super-natural at the same time.

With the same boat and net reel --- I had raised both dead basking sharks (35ft+ for one of those) and live whales, though the larger whales raised themselves by swimming, to be more honest, before those got away (thank God!).

But I couldn't budge that one fish an inch --- and it was moving around, when I was tight over the top of it, with the cork and lead lines straight up and down, with as much hydraulic leverage as I had. At first I thought the net was just stuck on the bottom. But then after fooling with it for a while...it began to move, and when I finally was able to later retrieve the net, there was no sign in the net itself of where it would have been hung up on the bottom -- and I knew what to look for, being as I had personal relationship of sorts with every inch of that fishing gear, knowing how to recognize various indications, but I'll need admit it left no slime or "smell" either...or even additional rips where I determined it must have been. I had set that net on sandy bottom, too, and it's a place that was well enough known to me. There are no rocks or snags, right where I'd set it, of that I am certain. AND -- I SAW the net moving, beyond any type of movement which could be accounted for by wave or current interaction with the boat & net, for I was highly tuned to the observance of that type of effect, for all the day long on that boat while tending to five gangs of net, I had to pay attention to the movement and momentum of the boat itself as I hauled nets up over the stern.

Oh well, it's one of those things others need not believe, I take it. But I did catch it in a section of net and webbing which the Lord had instructed me to add to some other gillnet I was using, and this additional piece being a sort which we had not used for a couple of years, and it being different in mesh size and overall height of the rest, which puzzled me, making me wonder -- "just what does He want me to catch with this old piece of net?". It was a section of net which I'd begun my fishing career with also, and the whole shebang belonged to a church of sorts, which preached the Gospel to whoever showed up and needed a place to be.

He didn't tell me any particular location of where to set the net after I'd added it to the nets we'd otherwise been using, for I asked Him, and was told "set it [the net] where ever you want..." I admit I was puzzled, and almost a bit perplexed too, at that point. I confess also, that just getting an answer so rapidly and clearly conveyed in words, was itself somewhat shocking to me...

Still, I was like== "gee thanks. You seemed to want something...seemed to have something in mind...then tell me put it wherever I want?" "Ok...how about right outside this harbor, (in one of may favorite places)?"

Nothing but silence...no further reply. God can be kinda' cagey that way. Says what He wants to say, and nothing more.

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