War, strife, corruption, poverty, illiteracy, disease—the world is filled with problems. Civic leaders, administrators, educators, pundits and others grasp for solutions, yet they focus on addressing the physical effects while ignoring the true cause, which is spiritual in nature.

Every issue of The Real Truth magazine analyzes world events, trends, conditions and ills—problems that cannot be solved through human reasoning, opinion or theory. Just as there are physical laws (gravity, inertia, etc.) that people must heed to survive, there also exist spiritual laws, which govern human behavior. Obeying them yields a multitude of benefits; breaking them brings ongoing misery and suffering, as evident in the deteriorating state of marriages, families, governments and other institutions and systems throughout all cultures and societies.

Mankind is helpless—fundamentally ignorant of the foundational knowledge that can bring about the universal peace, prosperity, equity and abundance all long for. Remarkably, such true understanding cannot be found in the halls of higher learning. Or in the speeches and policies of presidents, prime ministers and lawmakers. Or in the judicial renderings of the courts. Or in the editorial pages of opinion writers. Not even in the assemblies of this world’s religions.

Thus, every issue of The Real Truth points to the one government—the one system—the one way of life—that will end all wars, poverty, injustices and other troubles plaguing humanity. That government is the kingdom of God, which Jesus Christ will establish on the earth at His triumphant Return. This message of hope is themed throughout our growing archive of articles.

Yet there is another message this magazine brings, a dire warning specifically for the modern-day descendants of ancient Israel.

Unlocking the Keys

Most people—even the vast majority of those who profess to be Christian—are unaware that about one-third of Scripture is prophecy, of which 90% pertains to the “end time” or “last days”—this modern age—and to “the world to come” (Mark 10:30), a time when God’s government will rule over all nations.

The Holy Bible is a coded book, especially in regard to prophecy, which speaks in terms of symbols, keys and types. To understand any biblical teaching, you must apply Isaiah 28: “Whom shall [God] teach knowledge? And whom shall He make to understand doctrine?…For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little” (Isa. 28:9-10). This means taking verses and passages scattered throughout Scripture and putting them together to gain the full view of any particular doctrine, tradition or prophecy.

To recognize and understand the events foretold to occur in your lifetime, you must know the prophetic key identifying the nations, peoples and sequences symbolized in God’s Word.

Material Blessings Given, Not Earned

The book America and Britain in Prophecy, written by David C. Pack, publisher/editor-in-chief of The Real Truth and presenter of The World to Come program, reveals—in stunning detail—that the British and American peoples, along with France, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and other nations, are descended from the “lost” 10 tribes of the ancient house of Israel. (Not to be confused with the house of Judah, from which come the modern Jews.)

The book shows that God promised the patriarch Jacob (whom He renamed Israel) that “a nation and a company of nations shall be of you, and kings shall come out of your loins” (Gen. 35:10-12). Many have understood this “company of nations” refers to the British Empire and/or the Commonwealth of Nations (formerly the British Commonwealth).

Britain and America—prophetically called “Ephraim” and “Manasseh,” respectively—are the birthright nations, the main recipients of the national blessings God promised for the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Prophecy also refers to the American and British peoples collectively as “Jacob,” as well as “Joseph.”

It is no accident that the territorial boundaries of the British Empire (foretold to be “a company of nations” headed by “kings”) once spanned the globe. By 1919, there was never a moment the empire went without daylight somewhere in its vast realm. Yet that same global power began to shrink almost as soon as it reached its zenith.

It is no coincidence that as Britain’s influence waned the United States of America emerged as the single greatest nation in history. Yet—as with the former British Empire—its worldwide dominance is crumbling. Why?

The national blessings God has bestowed—first to ancient Israel, then to her modern descendants—come with a special responsibility: “Behold, I [Moses] have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the Lord my God commanded me, that you should do so in the land where you go to possess it. Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people” (Deut. 4:5-6).

God intended ancient Israel to be a model nation, to faithfully observe His Law and set the right example of conduct before all other nations. But the Israelites failed miserably. They rejected God and His ways time and again. They eventually split into two nations: the house of Israel and the house of Judah.

As divine punishment for their rebellion against Him, God sent each house into national captivity. Judah was allowed to return. Israel faded into the pages of history, becoming the “lost 10 tribes.” But their contemporary identity is not lost to those who understand the prophetic keys found in the Bible.

Today the descendants of Israel believe they are Gentiles, not understanding that the unique friendship between the U.S., the United Kingdom and the Jewish state of Israel is rooted in a common past.

This is but one of the many reasons God declares, “The ox knows his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel does not know, My people do not consider [understand]” (Isa. 1:3). In an age when the Bible continues to be the world’s best-selling book, biblical ignorance is the norm, especially in the U.S. According to the book Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know – and Doesn’t, 60% of Americans cannot name five of the Ten Commandments, and 50% of high school seniors think Sodom and Gomorrah were married (USA Today).

Such profound ignorance comes with a price: “Hear the word of the Lord, you children of Israel: for the Lord has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land…My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you” (Hos. 4:1, 6).

Britain and America have enjoyed almost limitless national blessings—abundance of food, seaports, military triumphs, strong economies, etc. But they have taken these for granted, using their “civil liberties” in the pursuit of all things perverse.

God says of their civic leaders, “Behold, the princes of Israel, every one were in you to their power to shed blood…Her princes in the midst thereof are like wolves ravening the prey, to shed blood, and to destroy souls, to get dishonest gain” (Ezek. 22:6, 27).

He declares of today’s family unit, “In you have they set light by father and mother: in the midst of you have they dealt by oppression with the stranger [alien]: in you have they vexed the fatherless and the widow…In you have they discovered their fathers’ nakedness: in you have they humbled her that was set apart for pollution. And one has committed abomination with his neighbor’s wife; and another has lewdly defiled his daughter in law; and another in you has humbled his sister, his father’s daughter” (vs. 7, 10-11).

God even has choice words for today’s religious leaders: “There is a conspiracy of her prophets [false ministers] in the midst thereof, like a roaring lion ravening the prey; they have devoured souls; they have taken the treasure and precious things; they have made her many widows in the midst thereof. Her priests have violated My law, and have profaned My holy things: they have put no difference between the holy and profane, neither have they showed difference between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from My Sabbaths, and I am profaned among them…And her prophets have daubed them with untempered mortar, seeing vanity, and divining lies unto them, saying, Thus says the Lord God, when the Lord has not spoken” (vs. 25-26, 28).

And of His people in general, God states, “Then say you, Thus says the Lord God, The city sheds blood in the midst of it, that her time may come, and makes idols against herself to defile herself…In you have they taken gifts to shed blood; you have taken usury and increase, and you have greedily gained of your neighbors by extortion, and have forgotten Me, says the Lord God…The people of the land have used oppression, and exercised robbery, and have vexed the poor and needy: yes, they have oppressed the stranger wrongfully” (vs. 3, 12, 29).

Public Health Image Library

Starvation and pandemic to come: A listless child who was among many kwashiorkor cases found in Nigerian relief camps during the Nigerian-Biafran war.

Public Health Image Library

An undated photograph provided by the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology shows the Emergency hospital at Camp Funston, Kansas, during the 1918 influenza epidemic.

Since He cannot find a man among them “that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before Me for the land, that I should not destroy it” (vs. 30), God has come to a conclusion: “Therefore have I poured out My indignation upon them; I have consumed them with the fire of My wrath: their own way have I recompensed upon their heads” (vs. 31).

This divine wrath is coming in three waves: “[1] A third part of you shall die with the pestilence, and with famine shall they be consumed in the midst of you: [2] and a third part shall fall by the sword round about you [military invasion]; [3] and I will scatter a third part into all the winds [national captivity and deportation to foreign lands], and I will draw out a sword after them” (Ezek. 5:12).

Special Punishment Foretold

It all begins with massive crop failure (Lev. 26:20), resulting from ongoing drought (vs. 19), excessive flooding and raging wildfires (Deut. 28:22), and insects (vs. 38, 42). From this will come food shortages, mass starvation (Lev. 26:26), pestilence (vs. 16, 21)—all leading to the unthinkable: “And you shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall you eat” (vs. 29).

Famine. Disease. One-third dead. And these will be just the beginning, for the birthright nations will scoff and refuse to listen, because “they are impudent children and stiff-hearted…a rebellious nation that has rebelled against Me” (Ezek. 2:4, 3).

Meanwhile, the peoples who have long enjoyed unprecedented national blessings are unwittingly conditioning themselves to be in the worst state—physically, mentally and emotionally—for when the greatest calamities in history will one day arrive.

Poor Lifestyle Choices

In late 2007, the Evening Standard published an article titled “Modern Living to Blame for Cancer Epidemic,” which reported on statistics by Cancer Research UK about the “deadly consequences of increasingly hedonistic modern lifestyles” of Britons.

• Smoking and Binge Drinking: “Cases of mouth cancer, which is associated with smoking and drinking, have increased by almost a quarter.”

• Sunbathing: “Malignant melanoma—the most dangerous form of skin cancer—is up by 43% in ten years as warnings to stay out of the sun are ignored.”

• Overeating: “Kidney cancer, which is much more common in smokers and the overweight, is also on the rise, the report shows. Rates of another disease linked to obesity, womb cancer, went up by a fifth.”

As untold millions in Africa, Asia and other parts of the world struggle to gather food for themselves and family members, obesity in the West is being increasingly embraced as a “lifestyle choice.”

“Obesity is a natural extension of an advancing economy,” health economist Eric Finkelstein told AFP. “As you become a First World economy and you get all these labor-saving devices and low-cost, easily accessible food, people are going to eat more and exercise less.”

Dr. Finkelstein and Laurie Zuckerman authored the book The Fattening of America: How the Economy Makes Us Fat, If It Matters, and What to Do About It. “There are simply many more incentives to gain weight than to lose it,” Dr. Finkelstein said. “We are, in fact, victims of our success as a nation. Unfortunately, the prize is diabetes, stroke and an increased likelihood of disabilities.”

American citizens are living longer, more materially abundant lives—yet needlessly suffer from a lifetime of poor health choices.

In the U.S., 31% of adults and 17% of children are obese. Obesity can cause multiple health complications, including cardiovascular disease, high cholesterol, diabetes, heart disease, heart attacks, strokes, sleep apnea—and ultimately an early death!

America is not the only First World nation guilty of overindulging in food consumption. In Australia, 1 in 10 children ages 12-17 regularly eat chocolate, ice cream, hamburgers, instant noodles or potato chips for breakfast.

Those who maintain junk food diets risk severely impairing their bodies’ natural immune system, which fights off toxins and diseased cells. As a result, these cells can become cancerous.

Research from the University of Queensland’s School of Population Health (Brisbane, Australia) revealed that the negative effects of type 2 diabetes among Australians will more than double in the next 15 years. Type 2 diabetes (formerly called non-insulin-dependent diabetes, obesity-related diabetes or adult-onset diabetes) is a metabolic disorder that is characterized by insulin resistance and hyperglycemia. The disease, which had been more common in adults over age 45, is now increasingly seen in children and adolescents. This is linked to poor eating habits and high obesity rates.

Substance Abuse

All too often, parents adopt the child-rearing philosophy of “Do as I say, not as I do.” They try to impress upon their children the serious adverse effects of certain behavior—yet display such behavior themselves. This sends a confusing message to children, which many translate into a license to do whatever feels good or gains them peer acceptance.

In 1992, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that “75% of all teenagers who smoke have parents who smoke.” Each day, between 4,500 and 5,000 11- to 17-year-olds smoke for the first time, of which about 2,000 will regularly smoke from that point forward. That translates into almost 750,000 new habitual smokers each year.

About 40% of fifth-graders across the U.S. have tried alcohol. By the time they finish eighth grade, 56% will have tried alcohol. Even more alarming, 15% reported heavy drinking—binge drinking five or more times in the previous 30 days. By high school graduation, 80% of students have tried alcohol and over a quarter report heavy drinking. They also report alcohol-related health problems. Nearly one in five teenagers report “blackout” spells, not remembering some or any of the previous night.

The statistical pattern of alcohol abuse grows even worse during the college years: 1,400 students die in bouts of severe drinking! Since 1993, colleges have seen a 125% increase in binge drinking by women. Sororities report that 80% of their members are binge drinkers. This has not come without consequences. A 2001 Syracuse study reported that twice as many women (as men) were rushed to hospitals with alcohol poisoning.

Then there is Canada, whose Senate recommended legalizing marijuana, stating that it is no more harmful than alcohol and tobacco, and it does not lead to stronger drugs. Federal studies show that 30% of 15- to 17-year-olds and 47% of 18- to 19-year-olds used marijuana in the past year.

Even legal drugs are routinely abused. From 1999-2002, the average number of Americans using at least one prescription drug in the past month was 45%. About 1.6 billion drugs were ordered or provided during physician office visits in 2003, and 1.7 drugs were ordered or provided per physician office visit in that same year. By 2004, one in six people—almost 17% of the population—took three or more medications.

Our Toxic Environment

To live, human beings must drink clean, fresh water. Yet generations have left behind a toxic legacy of disrupting the ecosystems of the world’s waterways with chemical pollutants. Massive ocean “dead zones” now exist, watery regions where animals cannot survive.

This is having an economic impact on the fishing industry, as well as suffocating marine life at risk. It has created numerous diseases and deformities in fish, crabs and other marine animals. The most famous of these dead zones is in the Gulf of Mexico, which spreads from the mouth of the Mississippi to other rivers along the coast, where fertilizers and other chemicals are deposited.

And then there are landfills and smog, which contribute to transforming nutrient-rich soil and fresh, breathable air into poisonous wastelands.

Leaders and Family

Gone are the days when children were expected to be held responsible for their actions. Parents and educators today proudly encourage teenagers to “experiment” with sex. Hetero-, bi-, homosexuality—young minds must “find their true sexual selves,” the thinking goes. Instead of feeling shameful for their sexual indiscretions—and the unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases that often follow—teens are made to feel ashamed for holding on to their virginity!

Such is the rotten fruit yielded from a society whose basic building block—the family unit—is crumbling away. Broken families, shattered marriages, splintered lives, with each individual devoted to doing what “seems good,” what “feels good,” to himself.

The Annals of Internal Medicine published a study stating that sexually active homosexual men are 13 times more likely to contract a new strain of antibiotic-resistant staph infection known as MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus). The new strain of the Staph bacteria—known as the multi-drug resistant MRSA USA300—continues to develop resistance to frontline antibiotics, moving to communities where the disease can be spread by casual contact. Recent studies have documented outbreaks in both athletes and military personnel.

What other deadly perils exist, waiting to be spread by man’s desire to break every law of God ten times over?

Millions of parents, grandparents and great-grandparents recall growing up during the Great Depression, followed by the Second World War. In those years of economic turmoil and uncertainty, they learned to sacrifice—to do without personal wants, even many needs. They learned to work together, to put the needs of others ahead of themselves. They learned to aspire to greatness.

The days of yesteryear were far from perfect, but at least innocence, chastity and spiritual reverence were publicly and widely encouraged.

But not today. A new generation has emerged, a nation of watchers, not doers. They ignore most things worthwhile, such as books (unless their pages are filled with tales of witchcraft, sex and demons), and fill their impressionable minds with visual junk. Valueless television shows—mind-numbing Internet social sites—pointless video games—and texting, instant messaging and cellphones. When does the chatter end?

Today’s youth—and not just teens, but those in their twenties, thirties and into their forties—“curses their father, and does not bless their mother” (Prov. 30:11). They “are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness” (vs. 12). With their “lofty eyes” and “lifted eyelids” (vs. 13), their “teeth are as swords, and their jaw teeth as knives, to devour the poor from off the earth, and the needy from among men” (vs. 14).

Such are pampered, catered to, spoiled and self-indulgent. Everything is always “about them”—how they feel, what they think, how they view their world. Such indolent people would have failed miserably during the Depression and World War years, yet they somehow see themselves as superior to previous generations.

Little do they understand that a calamity far, far worse than the 1930s and 40s is scheduled for arrival: “For thus says the Lord; We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace. Ask you now, and see whether a man does travail with child? Wherefore do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned into paleness? Alas! For that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble” (Jer. 30:5-7).

The first wave of God’s punishment will arrive. As with 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, hope in governments and institutions to come to the rescue will be met with futility. Every man, woman and child will be left to fend for themselves. A society of overweight, overstressed, oversexed, overmedicated and overly proud citizens will face barren food shelves. Restaurants gone out of business. Empty stomachs. Stress, despair. Desperate actions driven by extreme hunger. Lack of necessary nutrients and vitamins; weakened immune systems. Out-of-control diseases spreading from house to house, city to city. One-third—200 million—dead.

And then will come two more waves of punishment.

But once the peoples descended from Israel learn to seek the One who gave them their national greatness—once they collectively set their minds to become the model nation God had intended—they will enter into an amazing and glorious future. It all begins with a change in thinking and living. If only the birthright nations were not too stubborn and defiant to do this, and escape the punishment to come.

But the good news is that individuals can decide to change—and if they repent, God will give them a way of escape.