Reagan argued, in particular, that the energy shortage and sky-high energy prices and ever-longer lines at gas stations were neither permanent nor the result of Americans’ greed or narcissism. Yes, we can all do a better job of conserving energy, he agreed, but he went on to argue that shortages and high prices were the result of too much government regulation and could be easily and quickly remedied with a new approach—a conservative and free-market approach. Carter and his senior aides sneered at such talk and dismissed the Californian as a foolish B-movie actor who didn’t understand the complexities of real life.
“Morning in America”
Ronald Reagan, of course, won the 1980 election in a landslide. On the day of his inauguration, moments after being sworn in, Reagan stepped into a room in the Capitol and signed an executive order removing price controls on oil and gasoline, his first official act as president.[97] “Critics of Reagan’s action . . . warned that gas prices would rise to two dollars a gallon. Reagan predicted that oil and gas prices would fall dramatically, and he proved to be right,” noted one Reagan biographer.[98]
When Reagan took office in 1981, the average price of a gallon of leaded regular gasoline in the United States was $1.31. Rather than climb when Reagan removed price controls and began reducing regulations on the gas industry, prices dropped immediately to $1.22 in 1982 and fell to just eighty-six cents by 1986.[99]
Simultaneously, oil prices fell as well. In April 1980, oil had hit a record high of $103.76 per barrel (in 2008-inflation-adjusted dollars). But by 1985, the price of a barrel of oil had dropped to a mere $20 (in 2008 dollars).[100] Indeed, Reagan’s policies worked so well and so quickly that barely six months into his first term, the media were already talking about an “oil glut,” with too much oil on the market. On June 21, 1981, for example, the New York Times actually published this headline: “How the Oil Glut Is Changing Business.” Reporter Robert Hershey wrote, “Oil glut! . . . Suddenly, oil is so plentiful that prices are falling by amounts that impress even big-time corporate decision makers.”[101]
By 1984, the economy was humming, Americans’ confidence in the future had largely been restored, and Reagan was running for reelection. His most famous television campaign ad proclaimed, “It’s morning again in America. Today, more men and women will go to work than ever before in our country’s history. With interest rates at about half the record highs of 1980, nearly two thousand families today will buy new homes, more than at any time in the past four years. This afternoon, sixty-five hundred young men and women will be married, and with inflation at less than half of what it was just four years ago, they can look forward with confidence to the future. It’s morning again in America, and under the leadership of President Reagan, our country is prouder and stronger and better. Why would we ever want to return to where we were less than four short years ago?”[102]
Reagan defeated Walter Mondale in the biggest electoral landslide in American political history, winning forty-nine of the nation’s fifty states. By the time Reagan left office in 1989, he had racked up many remarkable accomplishments, including rebuilding America’s military, reestablishing credibility with both our allies and our enemies, helping bring down the Berlin Wall and the “evil empire” of the Soviet bloc, and helping liberate the American economy from high taxes and overregulation. Under his leadership, some 18 million new jobs were created,[103] millions of new small businesses were developed and expanded,[104] the Dow Jones Industrial Average grew to more than twice what it had been when he took office,[105] a dazzling high-tech revolution was set into motion, and Silicon Valley emerged as the computing capital of the world.
For Reagan, however, one of the accomplishments he was most proud of was liberating Americans from gas lines, energy inflation, and the prevailing sense of doom, gloom, and failure of the late 1970s. “Many of you, I’m sure, recall the howls that went up when we acted to deregulate oil prices two years ago,” Reagan said in a 1983 radio address to the nation. “Remember how you were told that deregulation would lead to skyrocketing prices for the gasoline that fuels millions of American cars or the oil that heats millions of American homes? Well, the evidence is in, and the doomsayers were dead wrong. You don’t have to go any further than the nearest filling station to see that prices have gone down, not up, since decontrol, just as we promised they would.”[106]
Bottom Line
To be sure, then, the optimists have a compelling case. When they argue that Americans have faced very dark times in our history and have made the fundamental changes and reforms needed to avert a full-fledged implosion of the country, they are absolutely right. When they say that given this encouraging track record, they feel confident that we can do so again, they say it with conviction. So who is right—the optimists or those who are more pessimistic? Before we can draw any conclusions, we first need to look at events through the “third lens.”
CHAPTER FOUR
THE THIRD LENS
It would be a serious mistake to look at events and trends in the United States merely through the lenses of economics and politics. It might seem normal, even tempting, to do so. But to truly understand the significance of global events and trends, we must not limit ourselves to a conventional worldview. We must also analyze events through what I call the “third lens”—the lens of Scripture. Only when we have a biblical worldview can the full picture become clearer. Only then can we begin to see in three dimensions.
I first wrote about the importance of taking this approach in my 2006 book, Epicenter, with regards to understanding the future of Israel and the Middle East from a biblical perspective. But looking through the third lens is an equally valid and important approach in understanding the future of other nations, including the United States. For while it is interesting to read what the pessimists and the optimists say about the future of any country, what matters most is what God says in his holy Word.
The third lens is essential in addressing whether the Bible describes the future of America and what clues it can provide as to whether we will survive the severe threats facing us today. More precisely, does the Bible actually answer the question so many people are asking: “What happens to America in the last days?”
Truly and effectively answering that question requires a step-by-step process of addressing several other matters first:
• Does the Bible really claim to know and describe the future?
• On what basis can we trust the prophecies found in the Bible?
• What does the Bible say will happen in the last days?
• Are we living in the last days?
• Is America mentioned specifically in Bible prophecy?
Let us, therefore, consider these five critical questions one by one. The rest of this chapter will address the first two; we will look at the following three in subsequent chapters.
Does the Bible Really Claim to Know and Describe the Future?
Make no mistake: the Bible is not shy about describing itself as a supernatural book. Yes, it was written down on tablets and parchments and scrolls of various kinds across the span of several thousand years by a wide variety of mere men, including Jewish shepherds, kings, warriors, fishermen, and rabbis, as well as a Gentile medical doctor. But though the Scriptures were written down by men, they were not written by men. To the contrary, the Bible states clearly and unequivocally that it is the inspired Word of God himself.
In the first chapter of the first book of the Bible, for example, we read again and again, “Then God said . . .” (Genesis 1:3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 20, 24, 26, 29).
In the second book of the Bible, we learn that Moses didn’t write the Ten Commandments. Rather, Moses wrote down the words of the Lord, as the Lord commanded. The Bible tells us, “Then God spoke all these words. . . .” (Exodus 20:1).
As we work our way through the Hebrew Scriptures, we continue to read verses like: “the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, saying . . .” (Genesis 15:1); “the word of the LORD came to Samuel, saying
. . .” (1 Samuel 15:10); “the word of the LORD came to Elijah in the third year, saying . . .” (1 Kings 18:1); “the word of the LORD came to me [Jeremiah] saying . . .” (Jeremiah 1:4); “the word of the LORD came expressly to Ezekiel . . .” (Ezekiel 1:3); and so forth.
The longest chapter of the Bible—Psalm 119—is about how powerful and helpful and wise and life-changing the Scriptures are because they are the very words of the living God. “Your commandments make me wiser than my enemies, for they are ever mine,” the psalmist wrote. “I have more insight than all my teachers, for Your testimonies are my meditation. . . . Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Psalm 119:98-99, 105).
When we get to the New Testament, we continue to learn that the words of the Scriptures are the very words of God. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” the apostle John wrote of the Lord Jesus Christ. “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:1, 14).
The apostle Paul put it as clearly as anyone could in his second letter to his young disciple Timothy: “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16).
What’s more, the Bible states that the prophecies contained within it were inspired by the all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful God, who chooses to give his people advance warning of the future events he deems of utmost importance.
Through the Hebrew prophet Isaiah, the Lord said, “I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come” (Isaiah 46:9-10, NIV).
Through the prophet Amos, the Lord said, “The Lord GOD does nothing unless He reveals His secret counsel to His servants the prophets” (Amos 3:7).
Through the prophet Jeremiah, the Lord told his people, “Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know” (Jeremiah 33:3).
Referring to the Holy Spirit, the Lord Jesus told his disciples, “When He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come” (John 16:13).
Bible prophecies are, if you will, intercepts from the mind of God. They tell us God’s secrets. They tell us “great and mighty things” we do not know about the future. They tell us “what is to come.” Often, biblical prophecies are “storm warnings” for the future, warnings of wars or natural disasters or other catastrophic events that God has decided he is going to allow to happen or cause to happen. Yet in his love and mercy, he wants us to be aware of—and thereby fully prepared for—these events before they come to pass.
On What Basis Can We Trust the Prophecies Found in the Bible?
Couldn’t any book claim to be written by God? Yes.
Haven’t other books in history claimed to predict the future? Yes.
On what basis, then, can we trust the prophecies found in the Bible about the last days in general and about the future of specific countries in particular? This is an important question, and the answer is simple: we can trust the Bible’s prophecies about the future because the Bible’s prophecies about the past have all come true.
Think about it for a moment. The prophets in the Bible told mankind about hundreds of specific events that would happen—and made those predictions before they happened. And then those events actually happened just as they were foretold. That fact provides proof that these men in the Bible truly spoke from God. After all, only God knows “the end from the beginning.” Therefore, only God could give his servants advance knowledge of the things to come, not just in a few instances, but in hundreds and hundreds of specific cases, and with 100 percent accuracy. Indeed, fulfilled prophecy is one of the distinctive elements that give us confidence that the Bible is the very Word of God, not the scribblings of mere mortals.
The Prophecies about the Captivity of Jerusalem Came True
The Hebrew prophet Jeremiah once prophesied that God was going to enact judgment on an unrepentant nation of Israel by sending the Babylonians to conquer the Holy Land and take her inhabitants captive. “And the LORD has sent to you all His servants the prophets again and again, but you have not listened nor inclined your ear to hear . . . Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘Because you have not obeyed My words, behold, I will send and take all the families of the north . . . and I will send to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, My servant, and will bring them against this land and against its inhabitants and against all these nations round about . . . This whole land will be a desolation and a horror, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon’” (Jeremiah 25:4-11). Scholars indicate that Jeremiah began his prophetic ministry around 626 BC. And sure enough, the Babylonians, under the leadership of King Nebuchadnezzar, conquered Jerusalem in 586 BC, just as prophesied.
Jeremiah also prophesied that the captivity of the Jewish people in Babylon would last for seventy years, at which point the prophet said the Jewish people would be set free to return to Jerusalem and the Holy Land. “‘Then it will be when seventy years are completed I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation . . . For behold, days are coming,’ declares the LORD, ‘when I will restore the fortunes of My people Israel and Judah.’ The LORD says, ‘I will also bring them back to the land that I gave to their forefathers and they shall possess it’” (Jeremiah 25:12; 30:3).
The prophet Daniel was one of the exiles living in the Babylonian Empire during this time. He had been taken captive at a young age and had grown up and been educated in the capital of Babylon. Yet while he had a powerful and intimate relationship with the God of Israel, he did not realize that the captivity was prophesied to last for a specific period of time. One day, however, as he was having his daily Bible study and poring over the prophecies of Jeremiah, he was startled by what he found. “I, Daniel, observed in the books the number of the years which was revealed as the word of the LORD to Jeremiah the prophet for the completion of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years,” Daniel would later write. “So I gave my attention to the Lord God to seek Him by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes” (Daniel 9:2-3). Daniel confessed his sins and the sins of his people and asked the Lord to have mercy and to forgive the Jewish people for turning their backs on the Lord. What’s more, he asked the Lord to keep his promise and release the Jewish people from captivity at the end of seventy years. This, of course, is precisely what happened. The Babylonian Empire was conquered by the neighboring Medo-Persian Empire, and the Jewish people were eventually set free to return to Israel and Jerusalem by order of the Persian king, right on the prophetic schedule.
The Prophecies about Four World Empires Came True
Among the most fascinating examples of Bible prophecies coming to pass is the dramatic dream of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar.
One night, the king had an unusually vivid dream about future events. The dream was so troubling that he could not sleep, and he called together the wise men of his kingdom to seek their counsel. In chapter 2 of the book of Daniel, we learn that the king’s most senior advisors anxiously waited for the king to tell them the dream so they could interpret it, but the king refused. “If you do not make known to me the dream and its interpretation, you will be torn limb from limb and your houses will be made a rubbish heap,” he said (v. 5). The magicians and conjurers and sorcerers again insisted that the king first share the dream and then they would explain it to him, but Nebuchadnezzar became enraged. “I know for certain that you are bargaining for time, inasmuch as you have seen that the command from me is firm, that if you do not make the dream known to me, there is only one decree for you. For you have agreed together to speak lying and corrupt words before me until the situation is changed; therefore tell me the dream, that I may know that you can declare
to me its interpretation” (v. 8).
The king’s advisors were incredulous—and terrified. They had just been threatened with death. Yet they were in an impossible situation. They were fully prepared to analyze future events for their monarch, using all the worldly knowledge and experience they possessed. But how could they possibly tell the king what his dream meant until they knew what his dream was? And how could they know what his private dream was unless he told them? “There is not a man on earth who could declare the matter for the king, inasmuch as no great king or ruler has ever asked anything like this of any magician, conjurer, or Chaldean,” they replied. “The thing which the king demands is difficult, and there is no one else who could declare it to the king except gods, whose dwelling place is not with mortal flesh” (vv. 10-11).
The furious Nebuchadnezzar then ordered that all the wise men of Babylon be put to death. Daniel, a young man at the time, was among this group. He had a reputation for having a relationship with a God who interpreted dreams and provided extraordinary wisdom. When Daniel heard about the death sentence, he went to the king and requested some time to respond to the king’s demands. Nebuchadnezzar agreed. “Then,” the Bible tells us, “Daniel went to his house and informed his friends . . . about the matter” and asked them to pray for “compassion from the God of heaven” (vv. 17-18) so that the Lord would reveal the dream and its interpretation, and so their lives would be saved. “Then the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a night vision,” the Scriptures explain (v. 19). Daniel thanked the Lord profusely for being a prayer-hearing and prayer-answering God, a wonder-working God. Then Daniel humbly went before the king.
“Are you able to make known to me the dream which I have seen and its interpretation?” King Nebuchadnezzar asked (v. 26).