If we want to know the future of the United States, the Hebrew Bible conveys the secret to its origins, its foundations, and its destiny.

Is the modern United States repeating the tragic history of ancient Israel? The twelve tribes of Israel walked with God during the two-century period of the Judges and rose to power and glory in the United Kingdom of David, around 1000 BCE. Likewise, the United States, three thousand years later, heeded the philosophy of Hebrew Scripture, and became the mightiest empire the world has ever known.

However, the philosophical roots that enabled the creation of this great nation have been crumbling and degenerating from within. The foundational, Enlightenment philosophy of the English Puritans has gradually been replaced with the European socialist philosophy of Rousseau and postmodern nihilism based on the German philosophy of Kant and Hegel, Marx and Nietzsche.

The English Puritans, who first settled America in the seventeenth century, were pilgrims who believed they were fulfilling their holy covenant with the God of Israel, fleeing from religious persecution in Europe and crossing the Atlantic Ocean, just as the ancient Israelites fled the armies of Pharaoh, crossing the Red Sea. John Locke, himself a Puritan, published The Second Treatise on Government around 1690, in which he lays the foundations for the philosophy of classical liberalism and the morality of individual rights. In this work that became the inspiration for the Founding Fathers, Locke quotes the Hebrew Bible and the Laws of Moses as the basis of his worldview that derived the ethical principles for civilization.

The foundations of the modern United States are the realization of the objective philosophy of ethical monotheism, which establishes the sanctity of human life, liberty, and private property as the basis of a moral society. Thomas Jefferson, the inspired author of the Declaration of Independence, called Locke, along with Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton—all Puritan Christians—the greatest men who ever lived.

In 2014, more than three centuries have now passed since Locke published his biblical philosophy, similar to the period between Moses bringing the Ten Commandments down from Mt. Sinai around 1250 BCE, and the split of the ancient Kingdom of Israel in 931 BCE. It was this split that marked the beginning of the end of the great kingdom as it slid into decline, despair, and ultimately, complete dissolution.

The relative pinnacle of American power was in 1945 after World War II had devastated Europe. The US dollar became the official world reserve currency under the Breton Woods Agreement, signed in 1944. The stability of the currency was insured by linking it to gold. However, in 1971, America had became corrupted with its imperial status, and President Nixon unilaterally terminated convertibility of the dollar to gold. This brought the Bretton Woods system to an end and saw the dollar become fiat currency, allowing the government to spend abundantly, monetized by Federal Reserve printing money without limit. The dollar is becoming a house of cards, based on nothing but faith in the government. When the dollar finally collapses, the government will be bankrupt, forcing citizens to pay even more taxes.

Today, the United States is at the same historical spot, relative to its founding, as the Kingdom of Israel in the tenth century BCE. It is not surprising that there is an epic battle taking place between the Democrat Left that wants the federal government to centralize power and authority, according to majority rule and the Libertarian and Christian Republicans, who wish to restrain government and return to the constitutional model of a democratic republic, respecting individual rights. The battle lines are drawn, and the battle is intensifying.
As the government becomes more authoritarian, usurping the free market through regulation and huge spending, budget deficits loom.

This is a repetition of ancient Israel’s history, when it became a great power, and the corrupted King Solomon raised taxes to pay for the lavish pagan temples he built for his hundreds of wives. The son of King Solomon, King Jeroboam, continued and even aggravated his father’s legacy of profligacy, centralizing rule and arousing protest from the people, which he answered with even greater force and coercion:

The king answered the people harshly. Rejecting the advice given him by the elders, he followed the advice of the young men and said, “My father made your yoke heavy; I will make it even heavier. My father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions.” (1 Kings 12:13,14)

Philosophically speaking, the West, like ancient Israel, has been degenerating for three centuries, and the results are manifest throughout the culture in the decay and loss of fundamental values. Unless it learns from the lessons of history, it is very possible that the destiny of the United States will repeat that of ancient Israel.