How the US Failure in Afghanistan Effects the World Order

How the U.S. failure in Afghanistan affects the world order. That is a topic we'll discuss today right here on the Christian Worldview Radio Program, where the mission is to sharpen the biblical worldview of Christians and to share the Good News of Jesus Christ. Thank you to you, our listeners, for your encouragement and support and also to our national sponsor Samaritan Ministries.

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We can't hurry up these telemedicine sites where you can purportedly get ivermectin and just to try to do it in advance, get it whatever way you can if you do want to go that treatment route rather than the mainstream treatment route for COVID. Let's get to the preview for today's program, how the U.S. failure in Afghanistan affects the world order. Now what we have seen this past week with the United States' ill-planned and inept withdrawal from Afghanistan, stranding at least 10,000 of our own citizens in the midst of a country completely overrun by the Taliban, a radical Islamic group, is a vivid portrait of weak, foolish, and confused civilian and military leadership in our country today, in the diminished state of our nation. The most prosperous, powerful, and freest nation the world has ever known is on the wane, I'm sad to say, reaping what I believe is the judgment of rejecting God, His word, and His ways.

If you think that's a bit hyperbolic, and you think the pendulum is somehow going to swing the other way, and you think that this is America after all, the land of the free and the home of the brave, we suggest you read a column we have linked in the preview for today's program by Don Fedork on the fall of nations, where he talks about the state of affairs in our country right now. And after you read that column, then turn to Scripture and think about how God deals with nations which reject Him, especially those who have greater accountability because He gave them so much to begin with, so much Christian founding and development, the new lows of moral decadence, financial recklessness, corruption, and self-loathing as a nation that characterize our country today, and the timidity of the church to proclaim the only remedy, the gospel, biblical truth, guarantees that the American empire will be yet another added to history's ash heap of empires. The timing of when that takes place is squarely in God's hands. Soren Kern, who's a follower of Christ and a geopolitical analyst for the Gatestone Institute, joins us today on the Christian worldview all the way over from Europe to discuss how the U.S. failure in Afghanistan affects the world order. He will also emphasize what Christians and the church should be pursuing diligently during these times. Let's get straight to the interview with Soren Kern. Soren, it is so good to have you back on the Christian worldview radio program.

Greetings from America over to you in Europe. I want to start out today by talking about this complete and utter failure of the United States in their withdrawal from Afghanistan and how that's going to affect the world order. We spent 20 years in Afghanistan, spent over $1 trillion, 25, nearly 2,500 Americans were killed. We announced this pullout in advance. President Trump actually announced that he wanted to get out of Afghanistan.

I think most Americans were in agreement we shouldn't just stay there indefinitely. But in this pullout that President Biden orchestrated, there was an immediate takeover by a terrorist group called the Taliban. The leader I've heard of the Taliban, who is the leader in the country now, was one who had been released from Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, a U.S. base there, in exchange for Bo Bergdahl, if you remember that story. I don't know if that's true or not.

That's what I've heard. The U.S. embassy has been abandoned. The Afghan president fled to another country with hundreds of millions of dollars, reportedly.

U.S. military equipment was taken over, technology lost, taken to Iran and other places. Thousands of Americans are currently trapped as of this conversation today. And we saw images of Afghans and other people flooding the airport tarmac in Kabul, the capital, hanging on and falling from planes and desperate to get out of the country because they know it's going to take place.

Executions in the streets. As a matter of fact, let me just play a quick soundbite of what President Biden said when asked about the horrifying images of people falling from airplanes that they were hanging on to in an effort to leave Kabul Airport in Afghanistan. But we've all seen the pictures. We've seen those hundreds of people packed into a C-17. We've seen Afghans falling. That was four days ago, five days ago.

What did you think when you first saw those pictures? So let me follow the reasoning here. Since this happened a few days ago, it really doesn't matter as much anymore. Meanwhile, the Biden administration's message to American citizens who are contacting the State Department to get out of the country is this as follows. And I quote, Two American citizens, thank you for registering your request to be evacuated from Afghanistan. The U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan has confirmed that an undefined number of U.S. government provided flights will begin soon. Please make your way to Hamid Karzai International Airport at this time. Please be advised that the United States government cannot guarantee your security as you make this trip to the airport. My first question for you, Soren, is just to put into perspective on any angles that you've been thinking about how much this withdrawal, this event, this moment has diminished the United States. Sure, David, thank you very much for having me on your program.

It's always a pleasure. I think this really is a turning point in the world order since the end of the Second World War. After the United States developed atomic weapons and won the Second World War, the United States sort of became what you could call a world policeman. There is no world policeman right now. The United Nations, the European Union, other countries are not able to maintain a certain semblance of stability in the world.

And particularly very important is the sea lanes that bring products through an oil, for example, through the Middle East, through the Suez Canal, through different shipping lanes in East Asia, Panama Canal, obviously. So basically, the United States has provided a great deal of stability over the last 70 or 80 years. I can understand both sides of the debate about whether the United States should have stayed in Afghanistan or whether the United States should have left. Really, it's not that easy to determine who's right and what's wrong because both of these positions have very valid points for the future of stability, particularly in Asia and particularly with the rise of China. In my mind, it was a very big mistake to give up the Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan because it really gave the United States a presence very close to China at a time where China is really trying to become the top player in international affairs.

So I think basically, the problem really was a sloppy way in which this whole withdrawal occurred. In my view, politics had a lot to play with it. President Trump negotiated a deal that the United States will be out in May. Joe Biden, he did not want anything to do with President Trump's deal. So he basically said that he wanted the troops out by July 4th as a symbolic gesture. And when that was not materialized, he said he wanted them out by September 11.

So these are all sort of dates that are political symbolism so that President Biden could declare a sort of a victory in this whole Afghanistan issue. But President Biden did not take the advice of many of its advisors, many think tanks, the intelligence community. And I think the problem really to my mind is that there was no plan B.

There was no real preparation for how to handle the withdrawal. According to my numbers, there are 40,000 Westerners that would be Americans, Europeans, Canadians, Australians in Afghanistan right now. And most of those are not able to get to the airport. And so it's really astonishing to me that the United States decided to pull out the troops before ensuring the safety of particular Americans, but of Westerners in general.

So you can see on many, many different levels, there were many mistakes made, very sloppy, inexcusable mistakes. And what I'm trying to get at here is really is that this is a really dangerous sign that we're sending to the world about U.S. reliability, U.S. commitments to its allies. And of course, the whole issue, how much longer is the United States committed to maintaining stability in a very dangerous world? So I think this really is a turning point where people, particularly allies in NATO, I'm sure that Taiwanese and Japanese, the Koreans, all the countries that are close to China are beginning to think like, is the United States reliable? Are these treaties that the United States has signed to provide us with defense, are they reliable? And I think this is really beginning to unravel what's called the Pax Americana, the sort of world stability that the United States has ensured, more or less. You know, there's been a lot of wars, obviously, a lot of ISIS and the Vietnam War and the Gulf War.

But I'm talking about general stability of the Western established order since the end of World War Two is now in question. And this is really very, very dangerous territory that we're entering. The Christian Worldview with David Wheaton returns in just a moment. At Samaritan Ministries, our members are passionate about being part of a Christian community that shares one another's medical needs without the use of insurance. But for Samaritan members Tony and Ginger Malik, that passion to share health with others is a way of life. Well, it was my wife's dream to come back to the farm. She wanted to be able to do sustainably raised vegetables and teach people where their food comes from.

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Be sure to visit our website, TheChristianWorldview.org, where you can subscribe to our free weekly email and annual print newsletter, order resources for adults and children, and support the ministry. Now, back to today's program with host, David Wheaton. Soren Kern with us today on The Christian Worldview radio program. He is a columnist for the Gatestone Institute, a geopolitical analyst. Gatestoneinstitute.org is where you can go to subscribe to his column, which comes out regularly there.

Soren, you mentioned about the perplexing thing that I think people who aren't even just paying half attention are trying to figure out. 10,000 or more Americans are still in Afghanistan, other Westerners as well. How on earth could you not evacuate everyone who would be potentially a target of this Taliban regime before they take over the country? At least every American should have had an opportunity to get out of there beforehand, because now you're left with potentially a gigantic hostage situation, relying on the goodwill of the Taliban to let these people, let Americans get out of the country. In fact, our defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, he was asked about this in a press conference. Do we have the capability to bring these Americans out of Afghanistan?

Here was his response. A distinction, Barb, between extracting someone in an in extremis condition or circumstance versus going out and collecting up large numbers of American citizens. Do you have the capability to go out and collect Americans? We don't have the capability to go out and collect up large numbers of people, Barb.

I just want you to think about that for a second, what he just said. We have the capability of going to extract someone, an individual in a difficult extreme situation, used the term in extremis, a difficult, hard situation. But then the journalist followed up right away again and said, do you have the ability to extract this large number of Americans in Kabul and in Afghanistan? He said, no, we don't. This is the most powerful country in the world who has now left American citizens behind and has the strongest military in the world. We don't have that ability. That's just what the defense secretary of the United States of America just said.

What is your thoughts on how this could possibly be the place where we find ourselves as a country, Sorin? The Defense Department had months, more than a year, to prepare for this. So this is really inexcusable to my mind. There are other factors at play. We've all seen the Joint Chiefs of Staff worrying about wokeness, worrying about cultural issues, worrying about the rights for transgender people in the military. It seems to me that the senior leadership at the Pentagon and in the Defense Department and elsewhere have completely lost focus on what their role is, what their job is to win wars, to provide stability, to protect American interests abroad. And what's really happened with United States foreign policy over the last 20 years is it's been focused on exporting certain types of values, whether it's promoting homosexuality abroad.

I mean, this is a big plank of the State Department's foreign policy, is this obsession with homosexuality in Africa, in the Middle East, in different countries, making it safe for these people to practice what they practice. So, you know, I think what we're seeing right now is a complete collapse of the institutions where they've lost focus on what their primary responsibility is because they've become so focused with all this other stuff that doesn't really matter. That's sort of part of the cultural zeitgeist. And this really is very concerning because this takes generations to reverse this sort of mentality. They have these cultural warriors, I guess you could call them, in all levels of the bureaucracy, of the foreign policy bureaucracy.

I was going through some of the past tweets, recent tweets of the different undersecretaries of state and its obsession with gay rights, with homosexuality, with transgender rights. It's like the United States has completely lost the focus that we are in an existential war battle. We're in a cold war right now with China, and China is so focused on being number one. China is so focused on taking down the United States. And the United States' elites are focused on things that completely have no relevance to modern geopolitics. And I see this, going back to the stability thing, very, very worrisome. I think the next few years, certainly decades, are going to be extremely conflictual, extremely tumultuous, because without a leader, without the United States taking the role of keeping a lid on things, anarchy and chaos are right around the corner. There is no question about that.

When you have as big of an empire and strong as a military, strong as an influence of the United States that has been in the world, if that is diminished in any way, the world order is going to change. And I completely agree with your statement about the obsession with the military, the State Department on homosexuality and transgenderism out there to help protect those homosexuals who want to practice what they want to practice. What they want to practice is sin, and it is abominable. And this country, it says in Romans 1, this country is in a Romans 1 situation where God gives them over. That is the judgment, where God pulls back his judgment on a nation.

And I strongly believe, and I think you do too, we'll get into that in a minute here, that God has pulled back his protection, his blessing on this country because of our obsession with going deeper and deeper into sexual perversion and promoting it. Ironically enough, just in June, I saw an image in a tweet, I think it was, of the LGBTQ flag, the homosexual transgender flag flying over the embassy in Kabul. How ironic.

And they tweeted something about it today, we do this and we're promoting the rights and values of homosexual transgender and whatever intersectional people everywhere and so forth. How ironic, two months later, that embassy is abandoned and America is perceived as a weak, feckless power in this world. One thing that's been happening, Soren, throughout this entire thing that's going on in Kabul is this is creating a huge immigration crisis. People are trying to get out of that country.

They know full well that the Taliban is a very, very highly Islamist, moralistic, punitive worldview. And they're trying to get out of the country, both lean to nations around there, also to Europe, and now there's a big push in the United States. We must take all these Afghans into the United States, tens of thousands of them not vetted and so forth. What is the immigration consequence going to be on Europe, let's say, and more specifically on the United States, Soren? Yeah, well, Europe is definitely going to bear the brunt of this new crisis. The German foreign minister, the German interior minister yesterday said that he estimates that there will be between 300,000 and 5 million Afghans leaving the country over the next year or two. So what we saw in 2015 with the migration crisis with Syria when German Chancellor Angela Merkel opened the borders, maybe there were a million, two million people that came in.

So what we're talking now is a new crisis on the horizon that will dwarf what we saw in 2015. And I have nothing against the Afghans, but the Afghans, at least let's say anecdotally, have been extremely, extremely difficult to integrate into European society. Other countries in the Middle East, Iraqis, Syrians, I guess somewhat, maybe more of European influences, I don't know. They have been a bit easier to integrate into European society, but the Afghans have been particularly problematic. And so I really don't see how the Europeans are going to be able to avert this. The European Union right now, the 27 members are very divided.

Some countries are saying that they should, they have a moral duty to take the migrants in. The Austrians are saying no way, that it's time now for the Muslim countries to start taking in some of these migrants that shouldn't be all on Europe's part. I guess what really bothers me or concerns me a lot is that the fact that now the United States no longer has a presence in Afghanistan, we no longer have an ability to monitor as closely as we should all the Islamist groups. And really all these weapons that have now been left for the Taliban, these are going to filter their way through the black markets into other Islamist groups, whether it's Al Qaeda or all the other jihadist groups. These weapons are going to make their way into Europe. I see that this is going to be fueling a resurgence in the jihadist campaign in Europe. For the last year or so, it's been more or less under control thanks to a lot of intelligence gathering. But really what we've done now is given the whole jihadist movement in Europe a new birth. And so with this mass migration of people, like you said, many of them are not vetted.

Some of them are not vet-able. They don't even have documentation. I see just a catastrophe from a security perspective ahead. I see a lot more jihadist attacks, a lot more moral fuel to the Islamists because they're going to be able to say that Islam has defeated the world's superpower. And that means that Allah is with them. So you're going to see a rebirth of Al Qaeda. Most certainly the Taliban are going to be cooperating with groups in Pakistan, in Iran, in Syria. It's only a matter of months to my mind until we start seeing the consequences of this. Soren Kern again with us today, a geopolitical analyst for the Gatestone Institute.

Gatestoneinstitute.org is where you can go to read his columns or it's linked at our website thechristianworldview.org. We're talking about how the U.S. failure in the departure from Afghanistan effects is going to affect the world order. We're hearing reports, Soren, in Afghanistan, and we can't verify these at this point, but we're hearing reports at least of execution of Christians, even for those who have a Bible app on their phone. The Taliban comes up to them and checks their phone.

If they have a Bible app, there's an execution for them. We don't know whether this is true or not. It's hard to get information out of the country now now that it's taken over by a terrorist organization. What have you been hearing about what is taking place with Christians in Afghanistan? At the moment, the information that's coming out of Afghanistan is very difficult to verify. What I do know is that there's between 10,000 and 15,000 Christians in Afghanistan.

It's a country of 38 million. I guess I would suppose that most of those would be in Kabul or in the larger cities. I really don't know about persecution of Christians at the moment. What I do know is that the Taliban have been going from house to house, searching through people's documents, searching through mobile telephones, and looking for people who have collaborated with the United States and other Western countries. I'm certain that there are Christian Afghans among those.

They will be found out. I'm sure that the Taliban will be ruthless against Christians and Jews. Of course, there are no Jews in Afghanistan anymore, but I see retribution on the horizon.

Well, this is something that we and our listeners need to be praying for, for the Christians who are going to be under severe persecution there in Afghanistan. We talked some about the change. You talked earlier, Soren, about the change of the geopolitical power dynamic in the world.

Let's talk more about that now. China is openly stating they want to be the world's superpower. They want to displace the United States. Of course, we've given that to them by deciding many years ago that we're going to offload our manufacturing production over to China, tying us in with the communist Chinese.

Just think about that for a second. Doing a partnership with ruthless communists in business, how that's going to work out. The biblical principle of separation was completely, that's a spiritual principle, but you could take it into other things as well, being partnering with a country like that. They have intentions of moving on Taiwan, which the US has committed, as you mentioned, in treaty to protect this island off of China, who's been a great ally of ours for many, many decades. Do you see that China is going to make a move on Taiwan and would the US even be able to do anything about it? Analysts are divided on the Taiwan issue right now. Some people say that China is looking for the perfect moment to try to invade Taiwan, and this is the perfect moment where the United States and Europe are in disarray.

Some other analysts say that China still needs a couple of years to be able to pull that off. But I think right now, just say in a hypothetical case that China would invade Taiwan tomorrow, I really doubt whether the United States would be able to do much about it. The problem is the United States is so divided. The society itself is so divided. When George W. Bush decided to move into Afghanistan after the 9-11 attacks, there was almost overwhelming support among the American populace for military action in Afghanistan. What you have now is a situation where the United States, the public, is completely divided. I don't know how a president could even persuade a majority of the country to support something like coming to the defense of Taiwan, and it will be bloody. The United States, yes, they lost a lot of troops in Afghanistan, but the Afghanistan war will be child's play.

I'm sorry to say I'm not denigrating what happened in Afghanistan, but compared to the full might of the Chinese military, I just don't see right now that the United States would be able to muster, American leaders would be able to muster public support for that, and China must be factoring that into their calculations. The Christian Worldview with David Wheaton returns in just a moment. David Wheaton here, volunteer host of the Christian Worldview radio program. Listeners are often surprised to learn that we as a ministry pay for airtime on the radio station, website, or app on which you hear the program. The primary way this expense is recouped is through listeners like you donating to the ministry or becoming a monthly partner.

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Short takes are also available and be sure to share with others. Now, back to today's program with host David Wheaton. Let's go back to the Middle East and talk about what this situation in Afghanistan now, no presence of America in Afghanistan at all, pull out in the worst possible manner. What does this mean for Israel's security in the Middle East?

Sure, that's a really good question. The Israelis must be also looking at what happened in Afghanistan with concern, that the Democratic Party in general has become very anti-Zionist, anti-Israel. It's very hard to see if, for example, just say Iran or even Hezbollah were to try to attack Israel. It's really hard to see how the United States would even be able to muster.

Again, it's the same thing as with Taiwan. Israel must be looking at what's going on in the United States with a lot of concern, looking at this from a prophetic perspective. Let's just get into that because whenever you're dealing with Israel, you're really dealing with a very unique country in human history. And so I think basically what we're seeing is that the geopolitical reality in the world is, you know, the United States is not mentioned in Bible prophecy. I think the United States is going down, and Israel at some point is going to realize that it is no longer able to rely on the United States, and at some point they're going to believe, you know, they're going to make a treaty with a false ally, and it's going to end up in disaster. Honestly, you know, we don't know where we are in God's prophetic timeline, and the fact that Israel is back in the land for 70 years is a real indicator that the Lord is moving in human affairs.

It's not a coincidence that Israel is back in the land after, you know, 2,000 years of being scattered. And so, you know, we have to look at what's going on in global affairs through the prism of Scripture and of prophecy. And my own view, without setting dates or without speculating, is that what we're seeing right now is a total realignment of the world order, and it's going to basically take us into this next period of the tribulation period. It just seems very clear to me, although I don't have any, you know, unique insights other than what Scripture tells us, and then trying to sort of compare what's going on in global affairs with what the Scripture says will happen. It seems clear to me that we're in very unique territory. We're in a unique time.

I couldn't agree more. Soren Kern, our guest today on the Christian Worldview radio program, a geopolitical analyst with the Gatestone Institute. You can find a link to his columns at our website, thechristianworldview.org. Let's go back to something we earlier discussed, just in light of what you said about end times prophetic biblical revelation-type events, this realignment taking place to move toward these end time scenarios where there's a global leadership governance, the rise of the Antichrist. Do you believe that the U.S. is in a state of judgment right now by God, like it says in Romans chapter 1, and God gives them over, and then they go into a descending spiral of further sin, and specifically a sexual, it lays out in Romans 1, from heterosexual immorality to homosexual immorality to basically just all different kinds of sin, and there's no restraint.

They're just not willing to acknowledge God any longer. Now, many nations around the world, America's not alone in that, a rejection of God and His Word. But I think the distinction is that America was given so much more. We started out, and for much of our history, there's been a strong biblical Christian influence in this country.

To whom much is given, much will be required. And so, to me, it seems that we are much more responsible as a country for where we have fallen because God gave us so much and so much truth to follow, and that's been rejected. Do you believe we're in a Romans 1 situation in America, Sorin?

Yes, unfortunately I do. I'm talking on personal capacity, not a capacity with Gatesstone Institute, but my mind personally as a believer is that the elections in November 2020 were a turning point because we really had a very clear choice between nationalism that President Trump was trying to preserve and the globalism of the Obama people and the Democrats. And I think personally that this election was fraudulent. I think that apart from all of the stuff with the ballots and all of the other activities going on, the fact that all of these legislatures, Democratic legislatures, state legislatures, were able to change election laws in an unconstitutional way, and the Supreme Court decided not to hear that case from that Texas Attorney General. I think all these things taken together show a United States that is exceedingly corrupt at every level.

It's whether it's a judiciary, whether it's a legislature, whether it's the executive. And I think basically there were millions of Christians praying that the Lord would preserve the United States, give us a little bit more time. And I think it's very clear that the Lord decided to give the country over to evildoers and to wicked people. I was reading a quote by John Calvin the other day who said, God gives a wicked nation wicked leaders. And I really do believe with Pastor John MacArthur and others who use the Romans 1 analogy that there comes a point where there's so much sin that the Lord not only turns people over to depraved minds and all of this insanity with the, you know, Black Lives Matter and Antifa and the racism, all of this is really a sign of a society that is completely depraved. And what we have, you know, a situation where now the Lord has just completely abandoned our nation, according to Romans 1. So I think this basically is all part of God's plan. It's part of a judgment of the United States.

And it's also part of a judgment of the world. Because as I said earlier, the United States has provided a certain stability to global affairs. It's allowed an unprecedented amount of prosperity and technological advances over the last 200 years, particularly since the end of the Second World War.

And now this is all basically changing. And what we're going to see is the rise of China, possibly Russia. We're definitely going to see the rise of Iran, Islam, all of these ideologies and these countries that are completely opposed to the liberties and freedoms that the United States stands for.

All of these other countries are totalitarian in nature, they want to control, they want to take away personal liberties, they want to take away the ability to worship freely. And so we're really, from my mind, November 2020 elections was a clear, clear turning point in American history and in world history. And from now on, I just see that global configuration of power, the geopolitics is just all beginning to fall into place exactly like the Bible says it will be in the future for the ultimate judgment. You are, I believe, again, I completely wholeheartedly agree with you. It's a depressing and discouraging thought for those of us who love this country and who appreciate the Christian founding and values that this country had for so long.

It's hard, it's very sad to watch. I think the question is, what should Christians be doing now at this point in time? God can change his mind, he did with the people of Nineveh. Certainly, we should be praying to God that he does that, but all according to his will.

This may be his will. The righteous believers are caught up many times in the judgment of God, as it was in the nation of Israel, and Daniel and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were hauled off to Babylon in the midst of God's judgment upon Israel at that time. So we can't expect believers to somehow be exempt. Yes, we do believe the Bible teaches there's a rapture of the church coming and we won't have to go through this terrible time of tribulation, but there may be much tribulation like until we get there. Can things turn around, Soren?

How would they turn around? What should Christians be doing in the meantime? This doesn't mean we give up, this doesn't mean we stop voting, this doesn't mean we keep standing up and strengthening ourselves and the family and trying to strengthen the church. What you just said means we don't stop on any of those things, but what should Christians be doing? Yeah, well, at this point, I think that the rapture is closer than we really think it to be.

All the signs are there. I know the churches, the Christians throughout the centuries and the millennia have always believed the rapture is in their generation, but we're different because we have Israel in the land now for 70 years, and that's a clear sign that the Lord is doing something. And the most important country and the most powerful country in the history of humanity is essentially imploding internally through decadence, through sin, through depravity, through greed. And I think really the biggest problem in America is the wealth. The economic wealth creates decadence. It creates a situation where people no longer want to fight for things that will cost them.

They would just want to preserve their own economic well-being. So what you have is a lot of even Christians who are silent, who are afraid to say anything because they don't want to be accused of being homophobic or of being this or of being that. So I think right now basically for Christians really is a focus towards holiness. We have been very privileged to be Americans. It was a unique time in human history.

It didn't really occur very often throughout the five or six thousand years of empires in human history. But basically the Bible says that we are not of this world, and we've had a good time in America. We've been able to have a freedom of religion. I think all these things are coming to an end very quickly, and it's possible that Christians are going to suffer. But the Lord is in sovereign control. And I think right now the future really, let me say for myself personally, I pray every day for the rapture.

I pray that the Lord will bring this to an end. We pray for Jesus that he can establish his kingdom in Israel after the end of the tribulation period, and we can really be in a geopolitical situation the way Jesus intended it to be before he was rejected as the Messiah two thousand years ago. You know, as a Christian I think we need to just think less about being American. I'm not saying that in a pejorative way, but more in terms of being a Christian, and that our nationality, that our national identity or our personal identity is not really part of a nation state, so to speak, but it's part of heaven. All Christians in America and elsewhere really need to start going through a change of priorities. Maybe you could say a change of mindset, of worldview, that things in this world are very uncertain, unsure, unstable.

We don't even know the next time we're going to be able to, I'm talking about my family, return to America. We don't know if there's going to be this or that, or we can't even know what's going to be going on in a year from now. And so this really is an opportunity I think for us to go back to the way things used to be in Christianity even with the Puritans where there was a much more greater focus on holiness and a personal relationship with the Lord. And I think sometimes the materialism, the material wealth in the United States has allowed Christians to become distracted from those sorts of things.

So that's sort of my perspective right now. I have very little hope for the future of the United States or for Europe. I think dark days are coming, very dark days. I think Christians are going to be persecuted and we have to deal with that knowing that the Lord is in sovereign control. But I think it's also good for us to pray for the rapture, pray for the Lord to bring this to an end. That gives us some perspective about the big picture of what's going on here. Soren, I just want to say how thankful I am for you even with a message that isn't hopeful or optimistic about the future of America. Or we can turn this around or this is just a down cycle and there'd be an up cycle.

And this is America after all, these baseless slogans that people have. That you bring in the reality of scripture to it and where God, we know in scripture where this world is going. This world, contrary to what I think it's post-millennials believe, that somehow this world is going to be Christianized and we're going to usher in the return of Christ. Look at the situation in the world. You really think this world, if we just kind of work a little harder, is going to somehow change the dynamic of what's going on in this very exceedingly sinful world and now this exceedingly sinful corrupt. I never used to see our country as being exceedingly corrupt and now I do. That it's compounded so much over the last 15, 20 years.

It's just been hard to watch. But we appreciate your sober-minded assessment, biblically-based assessment of what's going on in the world, Soren, and we just so appreciate your coming on the Christian worldview today. My pleasure.

Thank you for having me. Well, I know it was a sobering message today, but I believe it's a truthful one and one we need to hear. He referenced in his comments today the obsession by the State Department and the military to promote homosexuality and transgenderism. I found the tweet that the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, put out at the beginning of June of this year and they said, the month of June is recognized as LGBTI Pride Month. The United States respects the dignity and equality of LGBTI people and celebrates their contributions to the society.

We remain committed to supporting civil rights of minorities, including LGBTI persons, hashtag Pride 2021, hashtag Pride Month. And the rainbow flag flew over the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, for the month of June. And just two months later, the embassy was overrun and abandoned. Soren also mentioned this giving over judgment that we see in Romans chapter 1. And the first stage is where there is a strong affirmation in a nation of heterosexual immorality. And I think you can compare that to what was taking place around the time of the other ignominious withdrawal that the U.S. had from Vietnam and Saigon that took place then.

And that was going on in our country then. I'm not trying to compare them like one causes the other, but it just shows the descending depths of depravity this country has gone through and where we are today. Well, now we've gone from affirming heterosexual immorality to homosexual immorality and transgenderism. And then finally, the final stage in Romans 1 starts in verse 28, where it says, and just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind to do those things which are not proper. And it goes on to list all these things are filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, just society just implodes and just falls apart.

And it ends by saying, although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them. I think that is where we are today in America. We've gone through these stages of being given over from Romans 1 and we're in this final stage now. Of course, the timing is up to the Lord, but there's no turning this around unless there's a divine miraculous intervention revival from God. And we should be praying for that. But in the meantime, believers need to be pursuing the Great Commission command.

That doesn't stop no matter what the world condition is. So let's be very intent about being clear with the gospel on how people can be saved from the wrath to come. And if you are listening today and haven't been saved, you too can be saved by repenting of your sin and placing your faith in the person of Jesus Christ and His work for you on the cross. If you have questions about that, go to our website, thechristianworldview.org, and read the column, What Must I Do to Be Saved. Thank you for joining us today on the Christian World View radio program. You can hear past programs, get transcripts, order resources, sign up for our free weekly email, or support the ministry at our website, thechristianworldview.org. Let's just remember as we close, Jesus Christ and His Word are the same yesterday and today and forever.

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