The New Empire Coming Upon Us

by Robert Holmes Saturday, 15 November 2008

This article will cover a range of issues which have been brewing for six to twelve months in my heart. History will judge America as an empire. That empire is coming to an end. The election of Barak Obama is a significant prophetic event, marking the sunset of that empire, and the rising of other powers in the earth – who represent ancient powers and civilisations. These ideas have consequences for believers living both in the US and the countries who rely on her (like Australia). But to address those things, I need to go back eight years.

Standing in Upstate New York in 2000, I had a conversation with the Lord which I shall never forget. The Lord asked me “How long does an empire last?” to which I asked, “Am I standing in an empire?” [it did not occur to me that I was standing in the Empire State!] Rather than answering me directly, He said, “All empires come to an end”. I pondered this for a moment. What empire? Was this country coming to an end? Then He asked a third question: “How do people position themselves as an empire nears its eventual end?” The implications of his line of thought were clear. America had become an empire, had influenced the world, but was now nearing the end of her reign as a sovereign super power. God wanted his people to know, their day in the sun is ending; the sunset is coming. He wanted them to make preparations and adjustments.

What is an Empire?

An empire is a group of peoples (or nation) ruled by powerful sovereigns, whose government dominates a significant portion of the world’s inhabitants, whose borders encroach upon a large portion of the world’s land mass for an extended, unbroken period of time. Less specifically, an empire’s culture, religious inclination and form of government are forcibly, or indirectly brought to bear upon those regions under its influence.

The concept of an American Empire was first popularized in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War of 1898 (during which it took control of the Philippines and other Pacific island nations). America rates as an empire not only because of her global sovereignty but because of her super power status.

She is actually the world’s first “hyper power”. Hubert Vedrine, the French Foreign Minister stated in July 2003 that, “The United States of America today predominates on the economic, monetary, technological and in the cultural arena … in terms of power and influence it is not comparable to anything known in modern history … in short the US is a hyper puissance [hyper power]”. (1) Here is how
Stephen Peter Rose (from the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies in Harvard University) puts it: “The United States has no rival. We are militarily dominant around the world … We use our military dominance to intervene in the internal affairs of other countries … our goal is not combating a rival, but maintaining our imperial position, and maintaining imperial order,” (2).

This frame of reference, the mind set is easily seen in numerous speeches by US leaders.
Madeleine Albright during her tenure as U.S. Secretary of State said in February 1998, “If we have to use force, it is because we are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see farther into the future.” That may have been true in 1990, but it is much less true in 2010.

George W Bush Jr says, “Today the United States enjoys a position of unparalleled military strength and great economic and political influence … more and more the division that counts is the one separating America from everyone else.” (3) He is not the first to describe America this way, but he is the most recent. Former Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld categorically denies any imperialistic aspirations: “We don't seek empires. We're not imperialistic. We never have been.” (4) But his own government departments defy him.

The State Department established the Office for Democracy and Global Affairs in 2001. The most interesting Bureau within that Office is Democracy, Human Rights and Labour (established in 2005).
George W Bush Jr spoke at its inauguration, saying: “The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world,” (5) January 20, 2005. Read this as meaning “at any cost” even at the point of a gun.

Alexander cometh!

In 1999, as I prepared to travel to the US on ministry, the Lord gave me a very unusual prophetic word. He said that, “In the days of Babylon, when her walls stood wide and her leaders stood tall, her defences were strong and her campaigns victorious,
Alexander the Great came and defeated her. In the same way, my Alexander will stand in the very midst of the United States of America”.

The phrase “in the same way” indicates that America’s walls are wide, her leaders stand tall, her defences are strong, her campaigns until now have been victorious. But a man like
Alexander – someone God refers to as “my Alexander” will stand in her midst, victorious and defeat her. Alexander the Great, a Mediterranean Greek, defeated Darius the Mede in 331BC at the Battle of Gaugamela, and the gates of Babylon swung open to him (when he was just 25 years old). He stood in the midst of the courtyard declaring himself king. He then spent considerable time and effort trying to restore Babylon to its former glory. As I prayed in preparation for going to the US two weeks ago on ministry again, I had a vision of a map of America from high above. There, almost in the centre of it was a marketplace. I zoomed down toward the marketplace, and saw a man standing there. I recognised by the Spirit that it was Alexander the Great, standing in a dusty, sandstone area, sword lifted high, victorious.

I believe that God’s “
Alexander” is Barak Obama. He has now stood in the middle of America, and declared his victory speech in Grant Park in Chicago. There, he prophetically declared, “Change has come to America,” (6). Yes indeed, it has. Barak, apart from having the appearance of a Middle Eastern or African man, is also very young and inexperienced. Barak Obama has not even had a full term in his senate position (he was elected in November 2004). I do not question the right of a 47 year old to rule a nation, but his inexperience is not reduced by his amazing oratory skill. “Your sons will take the place of your fathers; you will make them princes throughout [in all] the earth,” (Psalm 45:16 NIV).

He represents the end of empire America as we know it, and the opening of a new regime, one which, like
Alexander, represents a conflagration of old powers: European, Middle Eastern and Asian. He will try to restore America’s glory, but in doing so relegate her to second position on the global scene.

Chinese communist armies may well stand ready to invade the US, but she is extremely well guarded. Muslim extremists are surely planning further self-destructive attacks on US soil, but she is well prepared. It is certain that European economies seek to outflank the US, but given the present economic collapse, their hopes fall with the US.

There remains one great enemy the US has no protection against at all: themselves. It is to ourselves we must look. The society we have created, the environment we have destroyed, the economy we have overtaxed, the people we have abandoned, the poor we have ignored, the sin we have run toward, the morals we have abandoned. These things must change.

- Arrogance and greed are their own poison.
-
Pride brings its own inevitable fall.
- Moral corruption is its own debilitating cancer.

America is in the cycle

In a substantial review of empires, Salem Kirban concluded that “world dominating civilizations progress through the following fairly well defined sequence of stages” (7):

- Bondage;
- Spiritual faith/ revival;
- Courage/ war;
- Liberty for the people;
- Prosperity/ abundance/ wealth;
- Complacency/ apathy;
- Dependency/ debt;
- Moral corruption/ addiction;
- Bondage.

It does not take an historian or a scholar to see that America has traversed her way through this very cycle of life, and finds herself in the dependency/debt and moral corruption/ addiction stages. National debt stands at 10,639,613,228,421 today (that’s ten point six trillion and rising). It is the most indebted nation on earth. Debt stands at 70% of GDP. And to whom is that money owed? The US government itself owns about 43% of it. The next largest holder is the US Federal Reserve, and after that: Japan, China, Britain and Oil countries of the Middle East (who together hold 29%, which is more than private sector Americans). About 66% of the debt owned by foreign nations is held by banks of other countries, in particular the central banks of Japan and China. (8)

Recall the prophetic words about the end of an empire, preparing for the days to come, and the appearance of an
Alexander figure. The era of America’s dominance is closing. Barak will oversee the increase of influence of foreign powers in the US: the power of ancient nations and forces. Specifically: European, Middle Eastern and Asian. The everyday mortgages of middle income Americans are owned by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, which in turn are heavily indebted to Japan, China and Middle Eastern oil states. This situation will only get more and more entwined. America stands a very real exposure to risk should foreign banks stop buying Treasury securities or start selling them heavily.

This risk was addressed in a recent report issued by the Bank of International Settlements which stated, “Foreign investors in U.S. dollar assets have seen big losses measured in dollars, and still bigger ones measured in their own currency. While unlikely … a sudden rush for the exits cannot be ruled out completely.” (9). One economic analyst, Nouriel Roubini keenly observes, “The US has squandered its uni-polar moment, the decline of the American Empire – as the US was a global empire – has started … We are indeed slowly moving towards a multi-polar world where there will be a balance of Great Powers rather than the hegemony of a single hyperpower.” (10)

Change of government, but no change of heart

There will be a change of president in the White House in January, 2009. The US president is moving from Republican to Democrat, but that does nothing to change the heart of the nation. The rise of a Black leader does nothing to address the moral malady she is in. Obama is not the nation’s savior. The nation is already deep in the throes of a national depression which will last between 2-10 years, it is the most indebted nation in history, and no man can rescue such a situation.

If Kirban is right, and if this word is true, the nation will bring herself undone. She will decay, and implode – and then bondage must come. As Irish philosopher
Edmund Burke once said, “Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters,” (11). Our passions must necessarily forge external fetters to govern us. Famine, strife, martial law, war, invasion and poverty ensue.

God calls
Barak Obama “my Alexander”. His standing in the midst of America, victorious was a prophetic announcement that change indeed has come to America. The American Empire is coming to an end. There is a global shift from a single super power to the rise of other powers in the earth. These ideas have consequences for believers living both in the US and the countries who rely on her. Our world is getting set to change! Now God asks, “How will you position yourself as the empire nears its eventual end?”

References:
1) Vedrine,
Hubert. Address to the UN Security Council. July 2003.
2)
Stephen Peter Rosen: The Future of War and the American Military, in Harvard Magazine 5/2002.
3) The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, Washington September 2002 (NSS), Preface by Gege W. Bush, p. 1.
4) Bookman,
Jay. "Let's just say it's not an empire", Atlanta Journal-Constitution, June 25, 2003.
5) www.state.gov/g/drl/
6) news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/us_elections_2008/7710079.stm
7) Kirban, Salem. “World Powers”, Christianity Today, 1968.
8) www.optimist123.com/optimist/2007/08/an-800-billion-.html
9) www.forbes.com “BIS says global downturn could be 'deeper and more protracted' than expected.”
10) www.rgemonitor.com “The Decline of the American Empire.”
11)
Apr. 3, 1777 - from a letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol

A Sheer Curtain: a Riot Against Christians in San Francisco

In the Spirit of Revelation 19:10, "...the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” The “Northwest” is described as “from Vancouver BC through northern California.” Since I heard this testimony, I’ve been convinced that there are lessons for the rest of us in the Northwest: about shaking the spiritual strongholds, about the riots that accompany the gospel, about protection in persecution.

Below is an account from our JHOP San Francisco team. Friday night they did what they always do which was to go to a street corner in the Castro District to quietly pray and worship Jesus. This night they were not evangelizing. They were not marching as the media tried to report it. They were not protesting concerning Proposition 8 which the news tried to make it sound like. They were praying...quietly. What happened next, I believe, was nothing short of a power encounter that revealed the rage and perversion of the hidden demonic realm.

This had less to do with the 500+ crowd of homosexuals that mobbed around the small group of young people, and mostly to do with the Church fulfilling her job description–challenging the principalities and powers. While they continued to peacefully worship God, the hateful mob hit them, knocked them down, kicked them, spit on them, urinated on them, groped them, tried to undress them and threatened to their face, "We will kill you!" The human frame wasn't built to contain the evil that rages when their spiritual strongholds are threatened. But we WERE built to house the glory of God that is being revealed in these last days.

Personal note: Please pay close attention to the attitude and posture of love that is demonstrated toward the homosexuals involved in this encounter. These young people represent the best of all that we hope to raise up in a generation of counter-cultural dreamers. Know this that our battle is not against flesh and blood. We all need a personal encounter with the God-man Jesus. In this way, we are all the same.




Letter from the JHOP-SF Team
:

We wanted to write you and fill you guys in on what happened to our team here in San Francisco last night. This is what happened from one point of view and gives a pretty good overview of the night.

I went to the Castro (the homosexual district of San Francisco) with JHOPSF (I have been with the Justice House of Prayer San Francisco since April 2008.) like we usually do on Friday nights.

Normally, we sit on 18th and Castro, and someone plays the guitar, and we all worship God. Often times people will be drawn to us, even if only for curiosity of what we're doing, so we get to talk to them, and tell them about the Love of Jesus Christ. On rare occasions, when the Holy Spirit clearly guides one of us (usually a leader), one person will open-air preach for a little bit.

Sometimes a person will yell at us, or maybe a few. Sometimes people will ignore us. Sometimes people will let us pray with them. We get different responses from different people each time, but the Lord always meets us there.

This time was not a normal night. It was the first time we'd been back in the Castro to do our normal outreach since California Proposition 8, which defined marriage as "one man with one woman" was passed. Apparently, previously, someone at a No on 8 rally singled out Promised Land Fellowship (The church that we attend), and specifically the team they send out to the Castro on Friday nights (us) as being affiliated with the Yes on 8 campaign (which is partially true. All the individuals involved with the Castro Outreach were involved with the Yes on 8 campaign, but mostly in prayer. However, the Castro Outreach isn't about Gay marriage, or politics - it's about Jesus Christ.).

We played the guitar and sang together and worshiped the Lord. Nobody preached. Nobody even really talked to anyone except for a little bit near the beginning.

After just singing and worshiping God for a while, Roger decided that we should all hold hands in a circle and continue singing. So we did.

Someone (actually a person who came up and hugged and kissed some of us who he knew from the past and was asking us how we were doing) convinced some people that we were there to protest against the No on 8 campaign.

Then some guy who was dressed up like one of the sisters (The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence is a group of men who dress up in drag like nuns and call themselves the spiritual authority of the Castro.) took a curtain-type thing and wrapped it around us.

Then a crowd started gathering. We began to sing "Amazing Grace," and basically sang that song the whole night. (at some points we also sang "Nothing but the Blood of Jesus" and "Oh the Blood of Jesus".)

At first, they just shouted at us, using crude, rude, and foul language and calling us names like "haters" and "bigots." Since it was a long night, I can't even begin to remember all of the things that were shouted and/or chanted at us.

Then, they started throwing hot coffee, some people got it in their faces, soda and alcohol on us and spitting (and maybe even peeing) on us.

Then, a group of guys surrounded us with whistles, and blasted them inches away from our ears continually.

Then, they started getting violent and started shoving us. We just gathered in as tight as we could together and worshiped singing Amazing Grace.

At one point a man tried to steal one of our Bibles. One of the girls noticed, so she walked up to him and said "Hey, that's not yours, can you please give it back?" He responded by hitting her on the head with the Bible, shoving her to the ground, and kicking her. I called the cops, and when they got there, they pulled her out of the circle and asked her if she wanted to press charges. She said "No, tell him I forgive him." Afterwards, she didn't rejoin us in the circle, but she made friends with one of the people in the crowd, and really connected heart to heart.

Our leader got death threats. As the leader of our group, people looked him in the eyes and said "I am going to kill you." and they were serious. A cop heard one of them, and confronted him.

(This part is kinda graphic, so you should skip the paragraph if you don't want to be offended.) It wasn't long before the violence turned to perversion. They were touching and grabbing me, and trying to shove things in my butt, and even trying to take off my pants - basically trying to molest me. I used one hand to hold my pants up, while I used the other arm to hold one of the girls. The guys huddled around all the girls, and protected them.

Soon after, the cops came and stood between us and the mob. When it was getting more heated, the cops were like "You guys should leave" because it was getting harder to protect us. And our leader said "We want to stay." Then they said, "If you want to get out you have to get out now."

Someone tried to steal my backpack, but I tapped a cop on the shoulder and said "Hey, that's my bag." and he got it from him and gave it to me. Others weren't so lucky. Probably half our team got their jackets stolen.

Eventually, as the crowd was getting more and more uncontrollable, the cops were afraid for our lives, so they escorted us to our van. (The cops were very nice to us from start to finish.)
Our van was parked pretty far because it was hard to find parking that day. As the cops escorted us, the mob followed us, until the cops formed a line and held off the people so we could drive away. We took the long way home, just in case anyone tried to follow us.

When we got home, we prayed and sang more, and then prayed over each other.

The whole experience made me love and brought me closer to God and my friends and the people in the Castro as well as the Church in general and the lost.

Please know my heart. All of what we do is for the Love of Jesus Christ, and the love for those in the Castro. The Bible says to love God, and then love people. We can only love because He loved us first. We can't hate the people because they are just broken and blinded by the spirit of this age. Our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against Principalities and Powers. It's not a political thing, we just love the people. We don't want to convert gays to straight people. We want them to know the Love of Jesus Christ. Even if someone never becomes attracted to the other sex, they can still love Jesus Christ with all their heart, mind, and soul. As the mob raged, all I could pray was "God have mercy." It really is all about God's mercy. He desires mercy over judgment. He desires for all to be saved.

One of the things that I remember them chanting was "Shame on you." One of our girls later pointed out how, in some weird way, it's a privilege for us because we know that Jesus bore all our shame and all our transgressions on the cross. So it's kinda like taking on their shame so we can cast it onto Jesus.

This is the raw footage of the walk from 18th and Castro Street to our car. It was only the very tail end of the night and says that we were all about Prop 8... when in reality we had nothing to do with Prop 8 this night. http://www.ktvu.com/news/17986914/detail.html

May the Holy Lord God Almighty, Who Was, Who Is, and Who Is To Come, be glorified now and forevermore. Amen.

Thank you for praying for us, and more for this people in the Castro. We have found ourselves even more broken over them. We love you!

(This is another copy of the same video as above, but hosted
on Blogger, not YouTube, in the event that YouTube eventually
removes their copy. It does include most of the raw footage.)

from the Justice House of Prayer, San Francisco,
via Matt Lockett's blog
video courtesy YouTube.

A Portal Opens in Washington State

This is from Chuck Pierce in June of 2008:

A time of divine intervention occurred in Everett, Washington this past weekend. We went to open the West Gate, and the Lord met us on Saturday morning and the gate opened.

One of the most difficult tasks for any minister is to qualify the spiritual impact of a particular gathering. However, of the 600 there on Saturday morning, all of us knew that God had come into our midst and the Host of Heaven had entered the earth realm.

Mary Glazier, an apostle from Alaska, and Dan Hammer, the apostolic leader from the host church in Everett, took their authority to welcome the next move of the Spirit into North America.

There is a GLORY that is coming into the earth realm at this time.

Chuck Pierce, Glory of Zion

An Egyptian Delivered Us

As the book of Exodus begins, Israel is in captivity. They were the chosen people of God, descendants of Abraham, but they had become enslaved. They lived like slaves, they thought like slaves, their culture was a slave culture, they believed in their slavery.

Moses was the deliverer for the people of God. He knew it; he tried to fulfill it prematurely, and that’s why he was running for his life.

From Exodus 2: 15 When Pharaoh heard of this matter, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh and dwelt in the land of Midian; and he sat down by a well.  16 Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters. And they came and drew water, and they filled the troughs to water their father’s flock. 17 Then the shepherds came and drove them away; but Moses stood up and helped them, and watered their flock.  18 When they came to Reuel their father, he said, “How is it that you have come so soon today?”  19 And they said, “An Egyptian delivered us from the hand of the shepherds, and he also drew enough water for us and watered the flock.”

Moses was also the deliverer for Reuel’s daughters and his sheep.

It was interesting that Reuel’s daughter’s described Moses to their dad as “an Egyptian.” I’m sure Moses looked like an Egyptian, but he was in fact a Hebrew. You know the story: his parents hid him in the bushes at the edge of the Nile and the Egyptian princess – Pharaoh’s daughter – found him, had Moe’s own mom wet-nurse him (thank God for a quick thinking sister!), and after he was weaned, he was raised as Pharaoh’s grandson.

Some have suggested Mo was in line for the throne; that may be just an interesting theory, but it illustrates the reality: Moses may have been biologically a Hebrew, but culturally, he was an Egyptian. He dressed like an Egyptian, he spoke Egyptian, he knew the Egyptian culture and mannerisms, and when he confronted the bad-guys at the water troughs, he approached it from the point of view of his position for the past several decades: as a member of the Egyptian royal family.

No wonder the ladies thought he was an Egyptian.

The church in America is in captivity. Genetically, at our very core, our essence comes from the realm of heaven, but we’ve lived on earth for so long, that we’ve become earthly, natural, in every other way. We think in natural terms. We live among the natural world. Our culture and mannerisms are of this world. We believe in the world we live among.

If the church were actually free, we’d reflect the culture and values of our birth-culture, Heaven. We’d see the events and people of the natural world through the values and resources of heaven. Like it happened around Jesus, and later around some of the apostles, people would find themselves healed – whether in body or in soul – when we were around. We’d measure our resources by the balance in Heaven’s account, not in the bank’s account. Our lives would be characterized more by joy, peace, faith, hope, love, and less by business meetings, church services, project deadlines, job descriptions or stress.

God is raising up deliverers in our day. God has spoken it prophetically, but it doesn’t really require prophecy to see it: there have been only three times that a generation has been wiped out: the massacre that preceded Moses’ birth, the massacre that followed Jesus’ birth, and the massacre of aborted babies today: God is certainly up to something!

Here’s my point: I believe that many of the deliverers that God is raising up in our day will look like “Egyptians.” Egypt has often been used as an illustration of the ways of the world, and many deliverers will look very worldly. They’ll speak in worldly vocabulary and use colorful worldly metaphors. They’ll use worldly mannerisms – not church-cultured mannerisms. They’ll have worldly friends: business leaders, gang leaders, political leaders, artists, educators, barkeepers.

But they’ll be God’s people inside, under all that “worldlikeness.”

The first thing we might see in some of these leaders is that they’re standing up for believers in the secular arena. We’ve already seen some of that: when radical Hindu’s blamed Christians for a popular teacher’s death and started massacring Christians wholesale, there was an outcry, and some of it was from the secular world. The mainstream media didn’t touch the story as far as I can see, but the blogging community did, and many “secular” bloggers spoke out about the injustice.

Does the appearance of a secular person standing up for Christians mean that they’re a deliverer, that they’re even a believer? Certainly not in every case. I don’t believe we’re seeing God’s “Egyptian” delivers quite yet, but I expect that we will in the next several years.

Many men and women who find themselves in the position of defending God’s people against Egyptian slave-masters will shortly find God moving in their lives. They may have a dormant faith, from their childhood or youth, that God suddenly fans into flame. They may be “about to be” Christians, ready for harvest. Or they may be genuine followers of Christ who have been hidden away from the public eye for a long time, possibly even hiding away from the church for many years.

We are coming into a day where God is bringing deliverers out of hiding, men and women who will not look like church-goers, and who in fact, won’t be church-goers, but they will be deliverers sent by God. If we’re not careful, we’ll reject these young leaders because we don’t recognize the clothing, the mannerisms, the style of speech. If we do, we’ll be rejecting something powerful that God is doing among us.